OAKLAND, Calif. — In the middle of the week, the Oakland Raiders were pulling guys off the night shift at Home Depot just to pretend they were doing something about a pass rush that had generated an NFL low 10 sacks in their first 12 games.
That’s where they got Demontre’ Moore, who signed on to Jon Gruden’s terrible defensive line along with Kony Ealy, and running back C.J. Anderson joined the club this week too as the Raiders tried to chicken-wire together a viable opponent for the AFC North Division-leading Steelers.
When the game finally started, the Raiders ran 10 rookies onto the slippery Oakland Coliseum turf, four on defense, three on offense, plus the kicker, the holder, and the long snapper. They also had half their secondary on injured reserve.
When it was all over, Oakland had committed 13 penalties for 130 yards, turned the ball over to a Steelers team that had just about abandoned all interest in takeaways, threw passes directly into the hands of Steelers defensive backs Mike Hilton and Sean Davis (being fortunate both were dropped), and failed to score a touchdown for 50 minutes and 24 seconds between their first possession and their ninth.
Aannnd, they won.
Because of course they did. This is California after all, and those were the Steelers, and these two components somehow produce a poisoned concoction that not Ben Roethlisberger nor galloping Silver & Black incompetence nor tens of thousands of twirling Terrible towels nor the actual physical presence of Raider Slayer Franco Harris himself could neutralize.
“We didn’t make enough plays to win the game,” said Mike Tomlin, who’s coaching a team that hasn’t made enough of ’em to do that in going on a month. “Equally as frustrating is that we’re on some of these plays. We’re there at the ball. We’re not making plays on the ball. We’re not making them and they are.
“It’s not like these balls are falling incomplete.”
So let’s pretend Sunday’s 24-21 pie in the face was not necessarily symptomatic of systemic problems, as though it’s not so much that the Steelers don’t have a kicker, don’t have a running game and don’t have a defense they can rely on.
Let’s pretend instead that this latest East Bay atrocity really just came down to one play that best fits the problem Tomlin is describing, and what a play it was.
Naturally, it was just another instance of the Raiders doing the wrong thing. It happened right after the two-minute warning, or 55 seconds after the Steelers had taken a four-point lead with a six-play 75-yard Roethlisberger cadenza, injured rib and all.
The play the Steelers didn’t make was on a 39-yard throw from Raiders quarterback Derek Carr to wideout Seth Roberts for a first down at the 7 with 1:16 to play. Safety Terrell Edmunds was there to make the play. Safety Morgan Bennett was there to make the play, but neither did. Roberts was there to make the play, and Roberts made the play, exactly the way the Raiders didn’t plan it.
“That was a play designed for [tight end] Jared [Cook, who caught seven other throws for 116 yards thank you very much],” said Gruden. “Derek threw it to Seth on the practice field against that coverage. I said to myself, ‘I can’t believe he threw that.’ That play is not designed for him. But Derek sees the field and I have been saying that from the beginning. If we can protect him and give him some good looks, he will make throws.”
Carr’s throw was perfect, but not so perfect that it could not have been altered by Edmunds or Burnett or both.
“I just gotta get over there and make the play,” said Edmunds, the lone rookie the Steelers started Sunday. “I saw the ball in the air. I had two receivers stretching me vertical, I just gotta get over there and make the play.”
He got over there. It was that second part that turned out so badly.
Burnett made a play on Cook in the back of the end zone two plays later, knocking away Carr’s third-and-goal throw, but on fourth-and-6, no one in a white shirt did anything.
Carr stood there under no pressure, and no one so much as covered tight end Derek Carrier, who caught Carr’s soft 6-yard touchdown throw like it a bridal bouquet.
Wait, check that. Bridal bouquets get contested way more vigorously.
“It’s not something that happened to us; it’s something we created and we take responsibility,” said Tomlin. “We’ve got to catch balls we have the opportunity to catch, we have to sustain blocks longer, we have to make kicks. Just good fundamental things and we’re not doing them.
“We’re going to continue to work; we’re going to absorb the negativity that comes with our current position.”
Losers of three in a row, unable to beat a wounded 2-10 team starting 10 rookies, unable to generate a 100-yard rushing performance since about Halloween — you don’t think there’ll be negativity do you?
Gene Collier: gcollier@post-gazette.com and Twitter @genecollier.
First Published: December 10, 2018, 4:01 a.m.
