Alright welcome in to the full recap of the Steelers-Raiders game where the Raiders elude a near 2nd half meltdown as they beat the Steelers 18-21. First off, I'm happy we won, the first win after the bye week in a longtime, but at the same time, I am just absolutely livid at how this game turned from a comfortable game in the first half to a down to the wire type of game in the 2nd half. You can't let a team like the Steelers hang around especially when Big Ben has a resume of game winning drives around his belt.
First off the positives and the negatives here are all over the place considering how the game went on. But one of them is the running game. All of our TDs came from a run play of course with Pryor shattering the rushing TD record for a QB. To run all over this Steelers defense in the first half is a testament and it's apparently obvious that Pryor is now the primary option with McFadden as a secondary. Either one way or another, they're gonna get you if you sleep on either TP or D-Mac.
Another positive, the defense. Negate the 15 unanswered points and poor penalites, the defense played great creating turnovers and sacking a very strong and elusive QB like Roethlisberger. A coming out party for rookie Sio Moore, he managed to get after Big Ben twice. Our front seven wrecked havoc on their offensive line to an extent considering we don't have the best defensive line, but yet they caused a lot of pressure because of our secondary playing tight man coverage and our secondary created two turnovers. You can make a case for our special teams as a positive too because they disrupted Suisham in short field goal positions and made a blocked punt of Mesko, if our special teams didn't make those kinds of plays of the kicking game of the Steelers, the Steelers would've rallied considering how the final sequences of the game went.
The negatives, I'm just going to shout it out: FINISH THE FREAKIN' GAME! Offensive play calling was too vanilla in closing situations and a couple of boneheaded turnovers in the 4th, including that Jacoby Ford fumble that helped the Steelers cash in the first 7 out of 15 points to make this game close. Not happy with those, especially if our defense played great for 3 straight downs and they have to go back on the field again because the offense turned the ball over. If I were DA, I'd spend this whole week of practice making this team learn how to close out a game. This game almost reminded me of the game against Detroit in 2011 where we were up 14-27 in the closing minutes of the 4th and Detroit came back to score 14 unanswered to win the game. Close out a game, end of story.
We won 1/2 against the Pennsylvania teams, we got Philadelphia coming in next week. So far, the Eagles have been playing disappointing football considering Chip Kelly wants a high octane offense and they have a QB controversy of their own, well you can add Michael Vick into the equation considering he was injured when Nick Foles and Matt Barkley were switching in between QB roles. We gotta contain LeSean McCoy in the run and DeSean Jackson in the pass and if we can do that, we can win that game too.
For Raider Nation, I'll see you next Sunday, for Laker Nation, basketball season is starting Tuesday! I'll see you guys on Tuesday for the LakeShow's season opener against Lob City. Remember same format.
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