OAKLAND, Calif. -- In picking the Kansas City Chiefs to beat the Pittsburgh Steelers last week, I violated rule No. 1 in predicting NFL games: Go with what you know.

It should have been obvious from the two games between the teams last year that the Chiefs can’t handle the Steelers. They were 0-6 against Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger in games he both started and finished.

But I went with Kansas City anyway and, like the Chiefs, lost.

So I’ll go with what I know in picking Thursday night’s game between the Chiefs and Oakland Raiders:

• The Chiefs have beaten the Raiders five straight times and there are some good reasons for that.

• Even after last week’s loss, the Chiefs are 5-1 against one of the NFL’s most difficult schedules.

• The Chiefs are for whatever reason better on the road than they are at Arrowhead Stadium. The Chiefs have won nine straight road games, including three this season.

• The Raiders have lost four straight games, scoring 53 points in the process.

A couple of things give me pause about picking Kansas City, including the Chiefs’ lopsided loss to the Steelers. The Raiders aren’t the Steelers, but did Oakland see enough from last week’s film to also find some areas to take advantage of? The burden during these short work weeks is greater on the team that travels.

But seeing is believing. Just as we saw similar versions twice last season of last week’s Chiefs-Steelers game, we’ve seen this Chiefs-Raiders game five times in recent years. We’ve seen enough good football from the Chiefs to believe last week’s game was the exception, the result of a bad matchup against the Steelers.

So I’ll go with the Chiefs 29-17, the 12-point margin being the average during Kansas City's five-game winning streak against Oakland.