It only took three minutes for the Oakland Raiders to find their way into the end zone of Sunday's game against the Kansas City Chiefs, which brought back painful memories of the Sunday night contest two weeks ago against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The Chiefs fell behind quickly in that game as well, but this time the Chiefs would answer back, and the counterpunch came in the form of the hometown kid from Oakland, second-year cornerback Marcus Peters, who entered Sunday's game as the NFL's leader in interceptions with four.

With the Raiders holding a 7-0 lead and the Chiefs offense going just 14 yards on five plays before punting on their opening drive, the Raiders got the ball back and were looking to make a big play—to capitalize on their momentum.

Peters had other plans.

Derek Carr, the Raiders Pro Bowl quarterback who came into Sunday's game as one of the NFL's leading passers, attempted to throw deep down the right sideline off his back foot on the third play of the Raiders second offensive possession.

"[Michael] Crabtree [WR] beat me on a double move, but I knew that [Derek Carr] wouldn't be able to throw the ball that far," Peters explained of the interception after the game. "I knew the ball was going to hang, so as soon as he got passed me, I just looked up.

"I trusted my instincts."

Peters' instincts have helped him nab 13 interceptions in the first 21 regular-season games of his career—a ridiculous pace for the first-round pick back in 2015.

It's worth noting that Carr threw off his back foot because of the pressure applied by linebacker Dee Ford and defensive lineman Allen Bailey.

When asked in the locker room after the game, Peters' teammates shared their thoughts on when they believed the game changed in their favor.

"The pick by Marcus [Peters]," safety Eric Berry explained. "He always tends to come up with something like that in the clutch, and we just feed off of that.

"Anytime we get big plays, we feed off of that."

The Raiders, who came into Sunday's game ranked No. 5 in the NFL by averaging 28.4 points per game, wouldn't find the end zone again after that interception, and on the first play from the Chiefs offense after that pick, quarterback Alex Smith found tight end Travis Kelce on a bootleg for a gain of 21 yards.

Just 10 plays later, running back Spencer Ware pounded it in for a 2-yard touchdown and the game was soon tied after the extra point from Cairo Santos.

It all started with the interception from Peters.

"It's still early in the season, but hats off to that man," veteran linebacker Derrick Johnson said of Peters after the game. "He's one of our great young players. When he got that pick, it kind of lifted the whole team.

"They scored on us first, but it's not what you do when they score, it's how you respond – so we responded really well."

The Chiefs defense responded in a big way in the second half—holding the Raiders to just 79 yards of total offense on 23 plays.

For Peters, who wears the pride of being from Oakland on his shoulder for the whole world to see, the opportunity to come back home and play in front of the town that raised him meant a lot, but making plays for his teammates meant even more.

"These are those games that you dream about as a kid," Peters explained. "I dreamed about playing in the mud, playing in the NFL. Just having the ball out there, it was a wonderful day."

Peters' response was just the beginning and the rest of the defense followed suit, holding a potent Raiders offense that came into the game averaging 392 yards of total offense per game, which was fifth best in the NFL, to just 286 on the day.

"I'm proud of our guys for the way they handled the situation," Chiefs coach Andy Reid said after the game. "This is a tough place to play, but I thought our guys handled it well."

The defense was led in the trenches by Johnson, who finished with a team-high nine tackles on the day.

"That's what we wanted to do," Johnson explained. "I talked about not losing our confidence (this week) and responding well in a hostile environment. This is a hard place to play, 'the Black Hole,' to come in here and quiet this crowd, it's a hard thing to do."

That's exactly what the Chiefs did on Sunday, holding a Raiders offense that had scored 62 points in their first two home games of the season—to just 10 points.

"We're about results," Johnson added. "What we're trying to do is not be that yo-yo team that plays great one week and then doesn't play well the next. We have a personality and that's fear nothing and attack everything—that's how we should play every game. "We're 2-0 in the division. You want to go to the playoffs? You want to win it all? It starts with the division. So coming into a hostile environment like this and handling business, taking care of business, it's great."