OAKLAND, Ca. – Forget that the Steelers continue to find ways to lose to bad Raiders teams in the Black Hole.
And, for now, forget that the past four games have all been decided on the final play, the past three of which did not end in the Steelers’ favor.
Those issues, debilitating as they are, have already morphed into the past, flushed away before the Steelers’ team plane even had a chance to leave this cursed area for what they must hope is their final time.
Of more pressing concern for the Steelers, who are lucky to be still be leading their division, are the issues on defense that aren’t going away. The same ones that haven’t been corrected since last season. The ones that continue to hang over them like the sword of Damocles.
In short order, they can’t use their linebackers to cover tight ends, who continue to find seams and win matchups against smaller defensive backs.
And they just can’t seem to make plays when they need them most. The last time they did, they won a game in Jacksonville. Since then, they are 0-3.
“It’s nothing mystical,” Coach Mike Tomlin said after the Steelers lost to the Raiders, 24-21, on a touchdown to another tight end with 21 seconds remaining. “We didn’t make plays to win the game, not just at the end of the game, but throughout the game. It’s as simple as that.”
The offense made the plays necessary to win the game when Ben Roethlisberger got back on his white horse and rode to the rescue with a 75-yard scoring drive to take a 21-17 lead with 2:55 remaining – a series on which he completed all six passes for 70 yards and a touchdown.
And they almost made another on a hook-and-lateral play to JuJu Smith-Schuster that gained 43 yards to the Raiders 22 with 5 seconds remaining.
Had Chris Boswell not slipped and had his 40-yard field-goal attempt blocked on the final play, the offense would have bailed out the defense again. Or at least forced overtime. That, though, would have merely served as makeup on the warts that won’t go away on this Steelers defense.
“We got to keep banging on the door, we got to get turnovers, we got to finds way to succeed,” defensive end Cam Heyward said after the Steelers held the Raiders to 55 yards rushing – the fewest allowed this season – but gave up 322 yards passing and two touchdowns to Derek Carr. “We’re not finding ways to win games. That’s the way good defense get off the field and we’re not getting off the field.”
The Steelers managed just one takeaway – a forced fumble by Bud Dupree on a Carr pass attempt – and watched the Raiders coverted one third down and two fourth-down chances on the final two scoring drives. That included the winning 5-yard touchdown to tight Derek Carrier, capping a day when tight ends tortured the secondary like a rocking chair in a room full of cats.
What’s more, when they had a chance to make a play, Terrell Edmunds and Morgan Burnett gave up a 39-yard completion down the middle of the field to wide receiver Seth Roberts, who somehow managed to catch the pass with the two safeties blanketing him. That moved the ball to the Steelers 7 and set up the winning touchdown to Carrier between Edmunds and Hilton.
“They just dropped that ball right in there,” said safety Sean Davis, who dropped an interception earlier in the game. “I hate to say good ball because I always look to us to make the plays.”
The Steelers didn’t, even what they had a chance.
“Big-time (frustrating),” Tomlin said of the late touchdown drive. “I think especially frustrating is we’re on some of those plays, we’re there at the ball. But we’re not making plays on the ball. Especially frustrating is they are and we’re not.”
To be sure, the Steelers did not make any plays on the Raiders’ three tight ends, especially Jared Cook, who had seven catches for 116 yards. The trio of Cook, Carrier and Lee Smith combined for 10 catches, 148 yards and two touchdowns, mostly by finding open spots in the middle of the field.
The Steelers have been using a lot of their dime defense (six defensive backs) because they don’t trust their inside backers to make plays in coverage. The problem with that, though, is the smaller defensive backs get outweighed in coverage or when the other team tries to run the ball against that smaller defensive package.
‘[Carr} has playmakers, especially at tight end,” Hilton said. ‘They found ways to get [Cook] the ball down the middle of the field. They got three different tight ends and they have different personalities. They found ways to get all of them involved somehow.”
Gerry Dulac: gdulac@post-gazette.com and Twitter @gerrydulac.
First Published: December 10, 2018, 3:05 a.m.
