Steelers’ defense ragged

Associated Press

PITTSBURGH

Mike Tomlin wasn’t trying to undermine his defense’s confidence. The Pittsburgh Steelers coach was merely stating a fact.

Faced with a fourth down at the Pittsburgh 29 late in the fourth quarter of a tie game on Sunday, Tomlin made the unorthodox decision to go for it. While he pointed to the short distance as a factor, there was another one at play as well.

“I wasn’t going to punt the football to them,” Tomlin said. “We hadn’t stopped them enough in the second half to do that.”

The Steelers converted to keep the ball, but it didn’t matter anyway. The Raiders got one more crack at it, and the Steelers’ suddenly erratic defense crumbled again in a 34-31 loss.

“We have to chew on this one for a while obviously and it’s not going to go down easy as it should,” Tomlin said. “But it won’t define us.”

Maybe, but Pittsburgh (1-2) will need to wait at least two weeks before getting a chance to wipe out the taste of a particularly disastrous fourth quarter in which a 10-point lead turned into a third straight road loss.

The Steelers are off next weekend before hosting Philadelphia on Oct. 7. It’s early, but with Baltimore (2-1) and Cincinnati (2-1) off to solid starts, Pittsburgh appears to be in serious need of a reboot.

Two weeks after Peyton Manning keyed a second-half explosion that sent the Steelers to a 31-19 loss, Carson Palmer did the same.

Four times the Raiders had the ball after halftime. Four times they scored, including Sebastian Janikowski’s 43-yard field goal on the game’s final play. Oakland converted 7 of 8 third-down attempts in the second half and Janikowski’s winning boot came on third and 10.

“If an offense scores 31 points you should win the game,” defensive end Brett Keisel said.

Keisel tried to place the loss solely on his shoulders. While he jumped offsides early in the fourth quarter to give the Raiders a first down deep in Pittsburgh territory, there was plenty of blame to go around.

Pittsburgh’s defense allowed Oakland’s anemic running game to roll up 119 yards on the ground and average a healthy 5.7 yards per carry.