Raiders could prove more troublesome than Patriots
PITTSBURGH – Scary as it might sound, the Raiders’ offense might have more success against the Steelers’ defense than the Patriots did. Talk about ugly.
Consider just for a second that Oakland’s passing offense is every bit as good as that of the Patriots, plus the Raiders have a six-pronged running attack led, so far, by Charlie Garner.
Falling in line behind Garner are Tyrone Wheatley, Randy Jordan and Terry Kirby, not to mention fullback Jon Ritchey and quarterback Rich Gannon.
“We’re not going to throw the ball 25 times in a row and get into a no-back set,” Raiders coach Bill Callahan said, referring to New England’s successful attack. “We have a compliment of running backs. We have six of them here that we call the committee. If we went to no-back, I think there will be a few people knocking on my door.”
Chances are, the knock on Callahan’s door would not be coming from Raiders owner Al Davis, who has yet to see a forward pass he did not like.
But therein lies the dilemma facing the Steelers tonight. While New England passed its way past the Steelers, the Raiders were building a lead with their passing game and extending it with a solid ground game.
At game’s end, Oakland had run for 221 yards and passed for 214 against a pretty good Seattle defense. New England managed 63 rushing yards on only 18 carries, but piled up 294 yards through the air against a Steelers’ defense that led the league last season and expected to be just as good this season.
Steelers coach Bill Cowher blamed the lopsided 30-14 loss at New England to shoddy tackling and an inability to stop third-and-long situations. He failed even to recognize the Patriots’ scheme, which was designed to suck the aggression from his defense by forcing it to stay in its nickel and dime alignments.
Callahan said the Raiders would not use a similar package, but its unlikely Patriots coach Bill Belichick devised his plan so pass-heavy, either. It basically came down to the Patriots passing until the Steelers stopped them. When Pittsburgh failed to do so, the Patriots kept passing.
The Steelers are convinced the Raiders will come at them with balance. That would mean a heavier dose of running plays than the Patriots presented.
“Obviously, they’re going to run more than New England did,” defensive end Aaron Smith said. “They have a lot of depth at running back and a lot of good players.”
But Smith was quick to note that it doesn’t matter what plays the Raiders run as much as how well the Steelers run their defensive game plan.
“It’s a matter of execution,” Smith said. “If they execute and we don’t … that was the difference Monday night. We missed some reads and missed some tackles. We made mistakes that turned into big plays.”
Safety Lee Flowers agreed that Oakland will try to run the ball, “but we have to keep in mind that the way we played Monday night, we left ourselves open to empty sets. We’re usually good against the run, but we can’t let people get in empty sets and stay in them against us. We’ve got to stop that.”
And they get a chance to do so before another national television audience. Half of the embarrassment the Steelers felt after Monday night’s debacle was the fact that their peers were all watching.
The Steelers, even this early in a 16-game schedule, are at a crossroads. They can either show up and beat the Raiders, in hopes of re-establishing themselves as an AFC heavyweight. Or they can drop to 0-2 and basically off the map. This would seem to be an important game for a team still harboring Super Bowl aspirations.
Not so, according to Flowers. He was asked to describe the difference between 1-1 and 0-2.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” Flowers said. “It’s still the first part of the season.”
We’ll see if he feels the same way if the Steelers lose and he’s faced with a bye week’s worth of practices.
Now that would be ugly.
Sports editor Mike Ciarochi may be reached at mciarochi@heraldstandard.com