The Steelers slept through the first half of the game in Oakland and put their season’s slim hopes to final rest in a strange, over officiated game Sunday. The Steelers had an abysmal first half and just couldn’t recover in time. Coming off an emotional win against the Rat Birds and with New England looming this had all the makings of a “trap” game and it played out exactly that way. By the time the Steelers came around it was too late.
The defense was torched in the first half for an astonishing 244 yards and looked like they were playing in cement shoes. They allowed a season-high 197 yards rushing to the Raiders and three rushing touchdowns, including a 93 yard run to daylight by Terrell Prior. That raised the season total of rushing TDs allowed to nine or another to way to put it as many as they gave up all of last season. Vince Williams and LaMarr Woodley got caught out of position several times. The defense eventually made the adjustments and pushed the Raiders into three turnovers but the damage was done and the offense had to dig out.
The offense looked completely disjointed and the offensive line play was downright dangerous. The Steelers lost both Dave DeCastro, Ramon Foster and Guy Whimper. The lack of protection made it nearly impossible to run the ball and Ben was running for his life the whole game. Despite that both units had productive days in the second half and it looked almost like the Steelers flipped a switch to start playing. They put together several great second half drives including a nine minute drive…that came up empty.
The Special teams coming off their best week played their worst game of the season, Shaun Suisham finally missed after making 15 field goals to start the season, and he did it twice from 34 and 32 yards. It is easy to point out that that was the difference in the result, but the Steelers blew several chances. Zoltan Mesko finally showed some signs of life but he cost the Steelers a touchdown with a muffed snap and had some trouble getting any kind of consistency.
The whole team just looked out of whack. Antonio Brown, Ryan Clark, LaMarr Woodley, Heath Miller, Manny Sanders, Ben Roethlisberger ALL made costly mistakes. The Steelers mismanaged the clock and made several key errors that added up to the loss. By the time they got it going, it was too little too late and it looks like the season is now officially over.
The Steelers have now lost 5 games this year, which is a travesty, what makes it worse, is they lost to Terrelle Prior, Jake Locker and Matt Cassel (who lost the job a week later). Those guys aren’t exactly Montana, Marino and Elway. Next on deck is Tom Brady, so brace yourself.
BEER WE GO STEELERS, BEER WE GO!
My “GAME BEER” goes to: NO ONE, seriously there were good performances but you are talking about half the game. Maybe we can give out half a beer.
Where I watched the game: Stayed home after a great Halloween party the night before. We were very excited as we got pizza from Al’Italia and we had enough pumpkin beer to float a battleship. We had the fireplace going and KGB cuddle up to me on the couch, it had the potential for a great afternoon. Then the first half of the game happened! The Beer of choice was Anderson Pumpkin Patch, it was pretty good but I will never drink it again after that game! The only highlight was proudly watching as my son Dante was literally praying for the Steelers to make the comeback! We were very proud of him!
My Stat of the week: 35 Yards of total offense in the second half, the Steelers made the adjustments they needed and kept the Raiders off the board. If only they played in the first half.
My thoughts on Next Week: It is going to be a long day v. Tom Brady and the Patriots. KGB’s prediction is in this upside down season we lose to the Raiders but beat the Patriots. Let’s hope so.