ALAMEDA, Calif. (AP) -It was no surprise that Tommy Kelly's best game in more than two years turned out to be little more than an afterthought.

Whatever positives the Oakland Raiders have managed to make this season tend to get obscured by the team's 1-3 record.

So while Kelly was drawing praise from his teammates and coaches after making a career-high 13 tackles against Houston last Sunday, the 300-pound defensive lineman shrugged his shoulders.

``I think I probably played all right,'' Kelly said. ``You always have about three or four real, real good games, when you're all the way on top of your game. Hopefully I can continue.''

The problem has been that neither Kelly nor the Raiders have been very consistent this year.

Prior to his big game against the Texans, Kelly had only seven tackles through Oakland's first three games and just one quarterback hurry.

As a defense, the Raiders had been on a steady decline since a solid performance in a Week 1 loss to San Diego and fell into a big hole against the Texans before holding Houston to 47 yards of offense in the second half.

``It gets frustrating but at the same time, you just have to keep chipping away at it, try to get everybody to execute the way (defensive coordinator John Marshall) wants the defense to look,'' Kelly said. ``Just execute the defense. Whatever he calls, just execute.''

It's that showing in the second half against Houston that Oakland is hoping to build on this week when the Raiders travel to New York to play the unbeaten New York Giants.

It won't be easy.

The Giants are fourth in total offense and sixth in rushing, while the Raiders are 26th defending the run. New York is also the fifth-highest scoring team in the league, averaging 26.8 points a game.

Much of New York's offense revolves around quarterback Eli Manning, whose rating of 104.0 is fourth-highest in the NFL. Manning missed his second straight day of practice Thursday due to an injured right heel and is questionable for Sunday's game.

Even without Manning, New York has plenty of power on offense with running backs Brandon Jacobs (288 yards) and Ahmad Bradshaw (265 yards) sharing the workload in the backfield.

``I kind of look at them like I look at San Diego,'' Kelly said. ``Jacobs is real downhill, real physical, but the back they got behind him, Bradshaw, he kind of reminds me of them San Diego backs. So I kind of look at it as playing against (LaDainian Tomlinson) to tell you the truth.''

Oakland's defensive line played well in its season-opening loss to San Diego, which came only two days after the team completed a trade for five-time Pro Bowl lineman Richard Seymour.

The Raiders followed that up with a decent showing the following week against Kansas City but came unraveled against Denver and had serious problems in the first half against Houston last Sunday before pulling out of the tailspin.

``They did a nice job,'' Oakland coach Tom Cable said. ``In a lot of places, that was really good team defense for the most part. (We) want to get better communication ... but I liked what I saw and I liked where they've gone with it.''

Cable pointed to the Giants as the perfect example of how a defensive line should play. New York owns the NFL's top-ranked defense and has allowed only 64 points all season.

While the Raiders might not reach that level, Kelly believes there's room for improvement.

``The more we play together, the better we'll get to know a player's tendency, how he rushes, how he plays the run,'' Kelly said. ``You can't just throw four players out there and just think everything's going to be A-1 from the go. By midseason everybody should be hitting their stride real good.''Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.