Napoleon Kaufman relishes his 4-yard TD on Oakland's first possession of the game. (AP)

The score sheet will indicate that the difference in this AFC West bloodletting was a 43-yard field goal by a most unlikely source, Raiders first-round kicker Sebastian Janikowski. But the victory, which boosted Oakland to 5-1 and ended a Chiefs' (3-3) three-game winning skein, was far more a testament to Gannon's two reliable legs than to Janikowski's meaty lower left appendage.

"He was like a windup doll or something out there today, running all around and buying time, and always seeming to make a play every time we needed it most," said Oakland wide receiver Andre Rison, who like Gannon once drew a paycheck from the Chiefs. "The man was great, really, what else can you say? I mean, how many plays were there were you thought, 'Oh-oh, there's nothing good happening here,' and he made something positive from it? He ad-libbed like crazy, man."

Indeed, the 13th-year veteran demonstrated enough improvisational skills throughout the game to merit a weekend booking at a comedy club near you. In crunch time, with Oakland scrambling to tie the game in the fourth quarter, it was Gannon who appropriately authored the punch line on the kind of pass you might witness in a flag football game at the vacant lot down the street.

The completion of 32 yards to wide receiver Tim Brown, which set up Tyrone Wheatley's 7-yard reception for the tying touchdown, was typical of Gannon's ability throughout the game to create something positive from a dire situation. It came on fourth-and-1 at the Kansas City 35-yard line, Gannon bootlegging to the right, finding fullback and primary receiver John Ritchie well-covered in the flat, backpedaling a step or two, then winging a sidearm pass downfield off the wrong foot.

With rookie strong safety Greg Wesley in man coverage down the left seam, Brown adjusted well to an underthrown pass and cradled the ball in at the 3-yard line. Not even a false-start penalty on second-and-goal could derail the Raiders at that point.

"On that fourth-and-1, he scrambles around for what felt like five minutes and all of a sudden, he throws a duck to Tim Brown for the biggest play of the whole game," said Kansas City weakside linebacker Donnie Edwards. "I thought we had him sacked and he pulled that play out of his butt. Then again, he did it all day, didn't he?"

Said Chiefs center Tim Grunhard: "He was running sideways sometimes, throwing it sideways sometimes. What can you say?"

Well, you could say that the Oakland defense earned some high marks, especially for silencing Chiefs tight end Tony Gonzalez in the second half. In shutting out the Chiefs over the last two quarters, the Raiders shut down their primary weapon, limiting him to one catch after had had six in the first half. But when Raiders players headed for the busses parked underneath Arrowhead Stadium, it was Gannon who did so with the game ball packed in his travel bag.

And deservedly so.

For the day, Gannon missed on only five pass attempts, hitting 28 of 33 for 244 yards, a pair of touchdown passes, zero interceptions and a gaudy 118.5 efficiency rating. An esoteric but telling statistic that won't show up in any box scores: Of his 28 completions, 13 of them unofficially came on plays where Gannon was on the move, either throwing off bootleg or waggle action, or scrambling away from the Kansas City pass rush.

And when Gannon's legs weren't buying him extra time to locate receivers, they were tacking on critical real estate, the quarterback rushing eight times for 38 yards. Gruden also cited three times that Gannon audibled in critical situations, but teammates claimed it was more often than that. At least two of the checkoffs on the game-tying drive, according to Brown.

Time and again, he would escape the Chiefs containment, get to the perimeter and drop the ball off to Ritchie for key gains. The third-year veteran fullback, who underwent an appendectomy only two weeks ago, had seven catches for 48 yards. His 17-yard catch on a third-and-17 play in the Raiders' game-tying drive, a play that was unsuccessfully challenged by Kansas City coach Gunther Cunningham, was indicative of Gannon's timely playmaking, especially on that series.

In the 14-play, 80-yard drive, Gannon found ways to convert two third-downs and one fourth. He scrambled twice for 11 yards in the key series, fired a 7-yard hook to wide receiver John Jett on a third-and-2, hit Ritchie in stride on the third-and-17, connected with Brown on the 32-yarder that converted the fourth-and-1 play, then scrambled around long enough for Wheatley to slide behind Kansas City strongside linebacker Lew Bush on the 7-yard scoring pass that knotted the game.

On the possession that led to Janikowski's winning field goal, a 64-yard march in eight plays, he twice made subtle moves in the pocket to draw the pass rush toward him before dumping the ball to Wheatley for gains of 12 and 16 yards. On the play preceding the biggest field goal conversion of Janikowski's brief career, Gannon made a hand-signal to Rison -- a bit of sign language the two recalled they actually learned while with the Chiefs -- and changed a corner route to a slant. The resulting 7-yard gain got the ball in the middle of the field for Janikowski.

"To me," analyzed Gruden, whose team now has a workable lead in the division, "that was Rich's best game since I've been with him. He made so many instinctive plays. His improvisation, the ability to make plays, it was incredible. I mean, the touchdown (pass) to Wheatley, it's designed with two tight ends, and for Rickey Dudley to work back to the ball. But that was closed down and Gannon just ran around until something opened up. That's just pure instinct, really."

Had the instincts of Kansas City management been different toward him, Gannon might still be with the Chiefs. He departed here in 1999, the Raiders quietly reaching agreement with him as an unrestricted free agent even as they publicly professed their allegiance to then-incumbent starter Jeff George, in part because the Chiefs decided Elvis Grbac was their guy. But as Elvis left the building here on Sunday evening, it was Gannon who was the beneficiary of the grudging applause from staunch Kansas City fans.

The decision to go with Grbac, then-coach Marty Schottenheimer said at the time, was because the younger player was the team's quarterback of the future. The Raiders signed Gannon because they wanted a leader of the here-and-now, and he has provided the kind of leadership that Gruden has demanded from him.

Sunday was just the latest example.

In winning for the third time on the road this year, including the victory here and at Indianapolis on Sept. 10, the Raiders again tapped into the inspiration reservoir their quarterback brings them. Notable is that Oakland has trailed at some point in every one of its five wins this year. It wasn't too difficult finding Raiders players anxious to assign Gannon credit for fashioning a legitimate Super Bowl contender from a team whose late-game collapses haunted it the past several years.

"No doubt, we take our cue from him," said Raiders guard Steve Wisniewski. "He really does give you a lift. The friends I have on the Chiefs, and the guys I talk to on a regular basis from their team, tell me all the time they got rid of the wrong quarterback when they let Rich get out of here."