Las Vegas Raiders vs Pittsburgh Steelers final score

Raiders, Steelers Week 6 recap, final score: Raiders unravel early, lose big again 32-13

Another big early mistake led to another collapse for the hapless Raiders.

Aidan O’Connell’s first start of the season would begin with some bad news — both the Raiders’ top receivers would not be playing.

With Davante Adams and Jakobi Meyers both missing with injuries, he set out to get the Raiders offense moving with the weapons he did have at his disposal.

That apparently meant a heavy dose of tight ends and running backs. And when I say “heavy dose,” I mean he used ONLY his tight ends and running backs.

Through five drives, no wide receiver had touched the ball.

It worked at first, with the Raiders driving for a touchdown on their opening drive with O’Connell going 4 for 4 for 45 yards. But it ultimately wasn’t sustainable.

First everything stalled, with consecutive three-and-outs. Then things began to unravel. Starting with rookie running back Dylan Laube fumbling the ball away on his first career carry.

The Steelers got the ball and for an instant it looked like the Raiders might take it right back. Divine Deablo intercepted it on a pass over the middle, but newly signed former practice squad defensive tackle Matthew Butler was flagged for roughing the passer, wiping it away. The Steelers kept the ball and scored the touchdown.

A failed two-point conversion would send the two teams into the locker room with a 12-7 Steelers lead.

The unraveling continued in the third quarter, when an AJ Cole punt was blocked, giving the Steelers the ball in first and goal at the nine. The Steelers added a field goal to go up 15-7.

Steelers offense got the ball back quickly due to the Raiders’ offensive ineptness and started driving again. A K’Lavon Chaisson sack set the Steelers back, but a Maxx Crosby roughing the passer penalty on the next play gave them the first down at the Vegas 41.

Two plays later, Najee Harris took the handoff, found the left edge and was gone 36 yards to paydirt. It put Harris over 100 yards on the day (102) with an average of 8.5 yards per carry. And it put the Steelers up 22-7 over the Raiders with over three minutes left in the third quarter.

A long drive at the end of the third quarter looked for a moment to end in a touchdown pass to Alexander Mattison, but Andre James was flagged for ineligible man downfield to wipe it away.

Next play, Ameer Abdullah broke a tackle and ran it to the one-yard-line. He was given the ball on the next play and had it punched out and the Steelers recovered. Brutal.

It wasn’t long before the proverbial nail in the coffin. Aidan O’Connell was throwing from his own end zone, dropped back and overthrew Brock Bowers. The pass was picked off by Donte Jackson and returned to the eight-yard line. Next play, Justin Fields runs a naked boot for a touchdown to give the Steelers a 29-7 lead with just over eight minutes left in the game.

The Raiders second touchdown was brought to you by garbage time with O’Connell finding Kristian Wilkerson for the touchdown and a failed two-point conversion. The final score of 32-13 came after the Steelers recovered an onsides kick and then drove inside the 20 to add a field goal.

Coming into the game, the Steelers were averaging just 3.7 yards per carry which was 29th in the league and Najee Harris averaging a paltry 3.3 yards per carry. In this game their running backs were averaged 5.9 yards per carry in this game with Harris more averaging 7.6 yards per carry.

O’Connell finished 27 of 40 for 227 yards, one TD and one INT.

Justin Fields finished with 206 total yards including 61 yards on nine carries with two touchdowns.

Brock Bowers led the way for the Raiders with nine catches for 71 yards.

3 causes for concern as Raiders face the Steelers Week 6

There are a few areas that are no doubt pretty worrisome for the Raiders against the Steelers Sunday.

While there are some reasons for optimism for the Raiders as they get set to face the Steelers this Sunday, there are also plenty causes for concern. Here are three I’m looking at.

Turnover differential…differential

With these two teams, you have nearly opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to turnovers. The Raiders have literally the worst turnover differential in the league (-7). While the Steelers have the fifth best tunover differential (+4).

Just once has a Steelers QB thrown an interception this season. Meanwhile, the Raiders are tied for the most interceptions thrown in the league (6).

It seems kind of funny, then, that both teams are talking about switching quarterbacks. Clearly the bar for QB play with each team is set at very different heights.

Down two number one receivers?

That’s what the Raiders could be looking at in this game. Davante Adams is set to miss his third game with a hamstring/trade request situation. His fellow starter — and number one receiver replacement the past two weeks — Jakobi Meyers is dealing with an ankle injury that has his status in doubt as well.

The past couple weeks they turned to DJ Turner as their third option behind Meyers and Tre Tucker. If Meyers is out too, Turner could start and it’s hard to say who else will step up considering the only other wide receiver on the roster is Tyreik McAllister. And Tucker, Turner, and McAllister are all very similiar types of receivers.

Suffice to say their options are limited and depth is a huge concern.

Terrible Towel Takeover

Word is this game is a hot ticket. And you can bet it isn’t because Raiders fans are simply much more eager to see their team take on this old rival. It’s because Steelers fans are coming. And with them the Raiders lose anything resembling home field advantage.

Expect Allegiant to be inundated with Terrible Towels. Yeah, the idea that a piece of cloth would be intimidating is laughable. But, really, it’s not about the towel. It’s about the noise of the fans attached to them. And in a covered stadium like this, it will get extremely noisy.

3 reasons for optimism as Raiders face the Steelers Week 6

The Steelers have similar issues as the Raiders right now. Including a QB controversy, struggles in the run game, and mounting injuries.

Sunday the 3-2 Steelers come to Las Vegas to face the 2-2 Raiders. The Steelers started the season 3-0, but have lost two straight. The Raiders are coming off a huge loss to the Broncos, so both teams are currently searching for answers, primarily at the quarterback position.

Here are reason for optimism for the Raiders as they face the Steelers.

Familiarity with either QB

There could be a QB change in Pittsburgh. But it may not matter in terms of the Raiders preparrations because they know both QB’s pretty well.

If they were to stick with Justin Fields, his former OC Luke Getsy is the OC with the Raiders, so few would know Fields better.

If they go with Russell Wilson, well this entire Raiders defense is familiar with him. They beat his three times over the past two seasons as the quarterback in Denver. Not to mention, if you’re turning to Russell Wilson as your answer at QB, that suggests things have gotten pretty bad.

Steelers run game is not strong

While we talk about the Raiders zone scheme not meshing in Las Vegas, the Steelers are having similar issues. In fact, while the Raiders have moved up to 28th in the league in yards per attempt (3.9 ypc), the Steelers are actually below them at 29th (3.7 ypc). Yeah, so neither of these teams are running the ball too well.

Edge rushers banged up

Nick Herbig and Demarvin Leal both left the Steelers loss to the Cowboys last Sunday and neither were at practice on Wednesday leaving the team thin at outside linebacker. They still have one TJ Watt, which goes a long way. But even the best pass rushers are helped by a complementary edge rusher on the other side.

Breaking: Raiders make change at QB, naming Aidan O’Connell starter

So much for a midseason competition. Prior to Wednesday’s practice, Antonio Pierce took to the podium and formally announced that Aidan O’Connell will be the team’s starting QB, replacing Gardner Minshew.

“When it’s time to make a switch, I make a switch,” Pierce said.

“I just felt like it was best for our offense going forward.”

Minshew was named the starter a couple weeks prior to the start of the season after beating out O’Connell in camp and preseason. But it was never an easy decision. Certainly not as easy as Antonio Pierce had hoped it would be.

Both quarterbacks had issues throughout the offseason practices and camp, so neither truly grabbed ahold of the starting job to make it an obvious choice. Thus Minshew’s leash was always short.

Pierce said he would give it the first quarter of the season and that’s basically how it went down. Five games in, Minshew threw two devastating interceptions in last Sunday’s game against the Broncos, leading to another blowout loss and that was the final straw.

Now Aidan O’Connell will get his shot at it.

Report: Gardner Minshew, Aidan O’Connell to compete for Raiders QB job entering Week 6

Entering week six of the season and the Raiders QB competition is right back to where it was in training camp.

Five games into the 2024 season and the Raiders are back where they were going into training camp — with a competition at quarterback. In lieu of naming a starter heading into the week of practices, the Raiders will hold an open competition between O’Connell and Minshew according to Vic Tafur of The Athletic.

Midway through the third quarter of Sunday’s game in Denver, Raiders head coach Antonio Pierce pulled Gardner Minshew and replaced him with Aidan O’Connell.

Minshew started the game out well, leading the Raiders to two scores, but two interceptions — one of which was a pick six — led to Pierce pulling the plug and putting in O’Connell.

The second-year former starter didn’t do much upon entering the game that would suggest he was the better option. He too threw an interception and only scored after the game was well out of reach and the Broncos defense was just playing out the clock.

Minshew hasn’t done much to cement himself as the starter, though the offense as a whole has struggled in many areas, namely with the zone blocking scheme and the running game has struggled as a result.

Up until recently, some of the issues were seen as a result of the team not picking a starter earlier, therefore causing a delay in team chemistry. This renewed competition would only figure to take the team back to square one in that department, but for a team desperately seeking answers, they don’t have a lot to lose.

The Raiders face the Pittsburgh Steelers in Las Vegas this Sunday.

Raiders vs Steelers final score: Steelers win 23-18 to spoil Raiders home opener

Steelers win 23-18 to spoil Raiders home opener

This game started out pretty much as we expected. With both teams going three-and-out. The Steelers had two of them to get things started. Then it really got interesting.

On the Raiders’ second possession of the game, they got things moving. Eventually they found themselves in fourth and inches from the Pittsburgh 32-yard-line. They lined up like they were going to try and punch it up the gut, but opted for the play action fake, hitting Davante Adams for the touchdown instead.

In a game where scoring seemed like it would be at a premium, that touchdown seemed like it would loom large. But three plays later, the Steelers answered back in a big way. Calvin Austin III broke open deep and Kenny Pickett launched one for him and 72 yards later, the Steelers had tied it up.

From there it was back to some defensive football. TJ Watt got around Jermaine Eluemunor to sack Garoppolo and help force a Raiders punt. Then Maxx Crosby returned the favor with a sack to force a punt.

When the Raiders got the ball back, they moved into Pittsburgh territory only to turn it over. A Jimmy G pass over the middle for Michael Mayer was picked off by Levi Wallace to give the Steelers the ball back.

They took advantage of the turnover, driving into Vegas territory. On third and short, Pickett snuck it up the middle for the first down on third and one. Then Maxx Crosby grabbed a Steeler player’s leg and pulled him off the pile and was slapped with a 15-yard personal foul penalty. The Raiders would ultimately make the stop on the drive, but the penalty would put the Steelers in field goal range and they took a 10-7 lead.

The Steelers would add another field goal late in the second quarter to extend the lead to 13-7. Then they would add another field goal in the third quarter to make it a 16-7 game.

Now a two-score game, the Raiders needed to get something going. Instead JImmy Garoppolo threw another interception and the Steelers took the ball and mounted their best drive of the game, ending with a touchdown pass from Kenny Pickett to tight end Pat Freiermuth for the touchdown.

With under four minutes left in the third quarter, and a 23-7 Steelers lead, the game was officially out of hand.

The Raiders would make it interesting late, driving for a touchdown, again to Davante Adams. Down 16, they went for two. A questionable pass interference on Minkah Fitzpatrick gave the Raiders two shots at it. On the second attempt, the Steelers sold out on the run, leaving tight end Michael Mayer wide open for the score.

A defensive stop would give the Raiders the ball back with 4:35 left. Then a big return by DeAndre Carter started that drive near midfield. They would drive to the eight-yard-line, but curiously opt to kick a field goal rather than go for it on fourth and four.

The Steelers would get one first down, taking ore than two minutes off the clock. With 12 seconds left and 85 yards to go, Jimmy G threw an interception to end the game.

Steelers come into Allegiant and take down the Raiders 23-18.