Oakland’s win streak ends in Pittsburgh, while captain Seymour goes for knock-out punch

There were questions coming into the game: Can Oakland make it 4 in a row? How will Pittsburgh react coming off an embarrassing home defeat to the Patriots? Pittsburgh’s defence alone answered both questions.

Compared with Week 10 where they uncharacteristically amounted zero turnovers on defence and gave up 453 yards against Tom Brady and the Patriots, the Steelers looked anything but pedestrian against a flailing Raiders’ offence. Before this game, Oakland had been putting up some serious numbers, averaging 247 passing yards per game and had won their last three. They were the team to beat and when they weren’t running all over Denver and Seattle, they were squeezing past Kansas City in overtime.

But Oakland have an awful habit of shutting down when coming off a bye-week and this game put an end to their hot streak as it was Pittsburgh’s turn to come out on top in front of a deafening crowd at Heinz Field.

For me, Oakland lost this game as opposed to Pittsburgh taking it from them, but the home team’s defence came up big nonetheless, sacking Jason Campbell 3 times in the first half alone and allowing him to complete just 7 of 19 for just 70 yards all game. Confusing looks and blitz packages lead to sacks and fumbles, which then paved the way for interceptions. James Harrison had a monster game and the ever-present Troy Polamalu picked off Gradkowski just as it looked as though he had managed to inject some life into the seemingly dead Oakland offence, while the ineffective Campbell sat and watched on the sideline.

The Steelers were the 1st ranked running defence coming in and they put up some serious numbers this week. Before being taken out of the game, Jason Campbell seemed to spend most of the game either face down courtesy of James Harrison, or on the deck trying to recover his own fumbles. Either that or he was on the sideline because he simply could not keep his Oakland offence on the field.

McFadden and Bush were non entities throughout, gaining just 61 yards between them and to add insult to injury, Richard Seymour got himself tossed from the game when he punched Ben Roethlisberger to the ground after it appeared that the quarterback taunted the big defensive end.

In this famously physical rivalry, this was as physical as it got for the Raiders and something tells me that Roger Goodell will be delivering a haymaker of his own. If not on Seymour then definitely on Chris Kemoeutu who immediately drew a 15 yard penalty for his retaliation.

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At this point, it was certainly not looking good for the Raiders as they were down 21-3 by half time and showing no signs of getting it together. With their Pro Bowl corner Nnamdi Asomugha still nursing an ankle injury, Oakland’s only chance in the second half was to swarm Roethlisberger and collapse the pocket, something that they do not do well without Seymour. Roethlisberger stood up all day long finding Mike Wallace for over a 100 yards. He was most certainly in rhythm, showing that the Steelers offence is better than the NFL passing rankings suggest. He completed one pass to eight different receivers in the first half alone, and ended the game with 269 yards in the air and three touchdowns.

Despite powerful defence and good offensive numbers, it was by no means a perfect game for the AFC North leaders as they repeatedly hurt themselves with penalties. Yet, this just puts more emphasis on Oakland’s inability to capitalise on sloppy play by their opponents. While Mendenhall was rushing for 59 yards and a touchdown for Pittsburgh, McFadden was struggling to make more than 3 yards per carry. McFadden’s lack luster performance put the game on Jason Campbell’s shoulders against a defence that does not like to give up yards or touchdowns and feeds off turnovers.

So what does this mean for the Raiders? Well, they are already 3-0 within their division and have the similarly wavering Dolphins next week so they could potentially advance to 6-5 but an embarrassing defeat has got to have a negative effect on a team with high aspirations.

Before this game, I would have picked Oakland to come out on top on their division, but this performance has shown how they struggle when things get physical. Sure Kansas had a great rushing defence and yeah, I know that Seattle were 4-2 when Oakland pulverised them, but against a hard-hitting defence like the Steelers, they looked shaken up. Having said that, they have proven so far that they are the best team in the AFC West and are not to be taken lightly so you can bet that they will still be around in the New Year.

As far as today’s game goes, the Steelers showed their skills - but the Raiders didn’t show up at all.Tom Greenhalgh

Final Score: 35-3

By: Tom Greenhalgh
ProFootball-fans.com Oakland Raiders Correspondent