Oakland ends streaks of futility

Raiders halt AFC West string of losses at 17

Pick a streak. Any streak. If it's bad, the Oakland Raiders may have just snapped it.

Getting 139 yards rushing from Justin Fargas and a big defensive stop on fourth down, the visiting Raiders handed the reeling Kansas City Chiefs a 20-17 defeat on Sunday that ended three different kinds of football failure.

Until those final seconds ticked away, the Raiders had lost 17 straight AFC West games. They had dropped nine in a row to Kansas City. And they had also lost six straight overall.

So which streak is most gratifying to halt?

"It is all the same," said Fargas, who had the Raiders' first 100-yard rushing day in Kansas City in 29 years. "It feels good to beat the Chiefs. It feels good to get a divisional win and get things going in the right direction for this team."

Oakland hadn't beaten anybody in it division since a 25-24 squeaker over Denver on Nov. 28, 2004, the longest ongoing streak of divisional futility in the NFL.

"You don't really think back to past games," Fargas said. "You try to live in the moment and take advantage of the opportunities that you have. It feels so good, a divisional opponent. We haven't beaten them in so long. It feels good for the guys in the locker room to get over that hump."

Fargas scored on a 14-yard run with 9:34 left to give the Raiders (3-8) the lead for good. LaMont Jordan, on what was intended to be a halfback pass, scurried in from 5 yards out when he saw the pass wasn't open but the running lanes were.

It was the fourth straight loss for the Chiefs (4-7), which had the consolation of discovering that their running back situation is not as bleak as they had thought.

Kolby Smith, a fifth-round pick who had been buried on the depth chart all season, made his first start and rushed for 150 yards and two touchdowns, the first Chiefs rookie to go over 100 yards since Harvey Williams in 1991.

ALSO SUNDAY

JAGUARS 36, BILLS 14: Fred Taylor turned his head and stared down two defenders as he strolled into the end zone.

It was the last time he looked back on Sunday.

Taylor ran for a season-high 104 yards and a touchdown, Josh Scobee kicked five field goals and Jacksonville thumped Buffalo in a game more lopsided than even the final score indicated.

Taylor and the Jaguars (8-3) wasted little time reflecting on this one. They quickly turned their attention to next week's game at Indianapolis, which could be Jacksonville's last chance to win the AFC South.

"We know what's in front of us," Taylor said. "We know what's at stake."

The Jaguars' third consecutive victory gave them extra confidence heading into next week's second meeting with the Colts. Indy won the first game 29-7.

"We're really rolling right now," Jaguars linebacker Clint Ingram said. "We're steady building. Everybody is taking a step forward and we're not really taking any steps back. Not to toot our own horn right now too much, but everybody's got the same goal and we're moving toward it.

"We're ready for the Colts now."

The Bills (5-6), meanwhile, were left to deal with back-to-back blowouts. They were hoping to rebound from a 56-10 drubbing against New England. Instead, they got another beating that helped the Patriots clinch the AFC East.

David Garrard hooked up with Reggie Williams for a 59-yard score that put Jacksonville ahead 29-14 with 2:39 remaining, then Maurice Jones-Drew added a 17-yard scoring run with 1:43 to play.

The two plays turned an eight-point lead into a rout.

Garrard, a former East Carolina star, was 23-of-37 for a career-high 296 yards and set a team record for consecutive passes without an interception (209).