KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Warren Moon has mentored young quarterbacks thoughout his distinguished career, offering pointers on everything from dealing with the media to beating the safety blitz.

For this week at least, the Kansas City Chiefs just hate that.

They're facing the Seattle Seahawks in a key game in the AFC West and Moon, now Elvis Grbac's backup in Kansas City, was key to the development of Seattle's Jon Kitna.

"Warren taught me a lot, a lot of things I didn't understand until this year about being ready week in and week out," said Kitna. "About how to be a professional on and off the field, how to prepare during the offseason and, more importantly, how to maintain my health and take care of little injuries.

"The things he's taught me are very important to the way we've gotten off this year."

The Seahawks (7-2) lead Oakland and Kansas City by two games in the AFC West, but will be looking for their first victory in Arrowhead Stadium since 1990.

Kitna took Moon's job as Seattle's starter with five games to go last year. Then, after Mike Holmgren became coach, the 43-year-old Moon signed with the Chiefs (5-4) and has thrown only two passes all year.

But at the end of a career that's seen him throw for 290 touchdowns and almost 50,000 yards, Moon takes satisfaction in seeing a protege doing so well. Kitna comes into Arrowhead with a 10-4 career record as a starter and leads the AFC with a 93.2 passer rating.

"He's a good kid, an outstanding person," Moon said. "He's an underdog like I was coming out of college. Nobody thought much of him coming out of college, just like me. But he's just worked his tail off to get to where he is. I was glad to help him. He was eager to learn every day."

The Chiefs, under first-year coach Gunther Cunningham, have lost two in a row on the road and are delighted to be back home, where they're unbeaten this season and 32-8 in AFC West games this decade. The last time the Seahawks won in Kansas City was 1990, and Holmgren was 0-2 in Arrowhead as head coach of the Green Bay Packers.

"It's a very tough place to play. Their fans really get into it," said Seattle running back Ricky Watters. "But if you can jump on them right away and hopefully take (the fans) out of it, that's a key thing, because that 12th man is really important for them there."

After consecutive 100-yard rushing games, Watters had just 29 yards on 17 carries last week in a come-from-behind victory over Denver that Kitna engineered in the fourth quarter.

"The most important thing is we get that crowd out of it, that we get our momentum going," Watters said. "Let's not go in there and fumble all over ourselves and make all kind of mistakes and jump offsides, and all of a sudden they're feeling good about themselves and the crowd is into it, and all of a sudden the snowball effect starts to happen where we can't play right and do our job."

Kitna should be even more dangerous with the addition of wide receiver Joey Galloway. After a long and bitter holdout, Galloway returned last week and had caught four passes for 88 yards against Denver.

"I read that he was playing flag football while he was out. I bet the guys on his flag football team have a lot of stories to tell," said Chiefs safety Reggie Tongue, who personally caused three of Tampa Bay's six turnovers last week.

"He's a great player. But he doesn't do it all himself. They've got a lot of exceptional players on that team," Tongue said. "I know the ball's going to be coming his way. He's a smart guy and he takes good care of himself, so it didn't surprise me one bit that he was able to do so well in his first game back."

A loss would probably doom the Chiefs to missing the playoffs for the third time in four seasons.

"This is a must win for us," said Chiefs left guard Dave Szott. "We really need to keep our string going at Arrowhead. We have to beat these guys."

At least the Seahawks have the luxury of knowing they'll still be in first place no matter who wins.

And that was one of the lessons Moon taught Kitna: don't get overly fretful.

"I was in awe of him from the first day he came into training camp," Kitna said. "There are still things I can hear him saying to me. I can still hear that in my head while I'm preparing for a game."

SEATTLE Season schedule and results

KANSAS CITY Season schedule and results

September 12 Detroit L 20-28 September 19 @Chicago W 14-13 September 26 @Pittsburgh W 29-10 October 3 Oakland W 22-21 October 17 @San Diego L 10-13 October 24 Buffalo W 26-16 November 1 @Green Bay W 27-7 November 7 Cincinnati W 37-20 November 14 Denver W 20-17 November 21 @Kansas City 1:00pm ET November 28 Tampa Bay 4:05pm ET December 5 @Oakland 4:15pm ET December 12 San Diego 4:05pm ET December 19 @Denver 4:15pm ET December 26 Kansas City 4:05pm ET January 2 @NY Jets 1:00pm ET

September 12 @Chicago L 17-20 September 19 Denver W 26-10 September 26 Detroit W 31-21 October 3 @San Diego L 14-21 October 10 New England W 16-14 October 21 @Baltimore W 35-8 October 31 San Diego W 34-0 November 7 @Indianapolis L 17-25 November 14 @Tampa Bay L 10-17 November 21 Seattle 1:00pm ET November 28 @Oakland 4:15pm ET December 5 @Denver 4:15pm ET December 12 Minnesota 8:20pm ET December 18 Pittsburgh 12:40pm ET December 26 @Seattle 4:05pm ET January 2 Oakland 1:00pm ET

Records source: STATS, Inc.

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