Sunday, October 27, 2013

RAIDERS vs. Steelers Half Time Post

Score: PIT 3 OAK 21

Alright so welcome to the halftime report of the game between the Steelers and the Raiders in a new chapter to this historical AFC rivalry. So far, the Raiders have come out of the gate and punched the bully in the mouth.

Some of the positives so far, the running game is bringing their A game so far behind a really banged up O-line, even though we got Wiz back. 93 yard run by Terrelle Pryor out of the gate setting the record for the most rushing TD yards by a QB, followed by back to back TD runs by Darren McFadden. Credit to the O-line creating as much holes as they can against the stingy D. Another positive, the defense, defense, defense. They just held the Steelers to double digit yards and who knows, our defense is knocking on the door to be one of the most underrated defenses in the NFL. Defense managed to get Ben Roethlisberger 2 times and he is so strong to evade tackles and that's a good sign.

Negatives, just dumb decisions overall and special teams on the receiving end of the ball. Taiwan Jones muffed a kickoff and Jacoby Ford almost muffed twice on punt returns. The Steelers are so good when they create turnovers and we gotta eliminate those. Pryor, I know he threw two picks, but one is not his fault and the other was actually his fault. Pryor should've thrown it away during that INT to Polamalu and he just needs to continue his decision making, the second one, Brice Butler should've caught, but it ricocheted off his body leading to another pick. We're playing a complete game on all 3 phases, we just continue to play smart football.

As usual, no lead is safe in the 2nd half, the Raiders have a tenacity to take the foot off the gas and as long as we keep going with the tempo in the first half, we'll be fine. Hopefully we learned a thing or two from the late night game against the Chargers to finish up the game and not let the opposing team hang around, especially against a Steelers team that is playing in desperation mode.

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