Steelers-Raiders Takeaways: Matt Canada was a step ahead of the Raiders?

Week 3 What We Learned

Steelers 23 – Raiders 18 (F) | First Down | Kenny Pickett Did It!!!!!! — Pickett in his 15th career NFL start and 16th game, threw multiple touchdown passes for the first time in his career as the Pittsburgh Steelers topped the Las Vegas Raiders 28-18 on Sunday Night. Pickett in the win was 16/28 for 235 yards with 2 touchdown passes and a 108.5 QB rating.

“[Kenny] made the necessary plays, “Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin said afterwards. “I thought he was good in the environment. I thought he was a good communicator. He did the job tonight.”

Pickett’s start was not ideal. Pittsburgh opened the game with back-to-back three and outs and happy feet Pickett was an issue in the pocket. Down 7-0 early, though, Pickett connected with Calvin Austin deep down the middle for a 72 yard touchdown strike at 6:12 of the first quarter. Pittsburgh would never trail again the rest of the evening. The Pickett/Austin touchdown was on a broken defensive play as no Raider was within 10-15 yards of Austin. Pittsburgh’s most impressive drive of the night would come in the 3rd quarter when the Steelers drove 81 yards on six drives, with Pickett capping the drive off with a 13 yard TD pass to Pat Freiermuth to give the Steelers a commanding 23-7 lead with 3:56 left in the third game. The drive was among the highlights of the night where the Steelers excelled with misdirection calls.

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Second Down: Considering the opponent, scoring 23 points and totaling 333 yards and 17 first downs is nothing to get too excited about in the big picture. That’s pretty pedestrian in today’s NFL. But for this offense and this quarterback, it’s hard to come away with much of anything to overly negative about. If Marcus Peters doesn’t drop that gimme pick-six, who knows how that game goes even with Jimmy Garoppolo being so bad. Despite Pittsburgh looking to be in control most of the night and the superior team, this still ended up being a one score game as that Marcus Peters dropped pick-Six Int was a huge stain on the on the Raiders stealing one.

What we learned against the Raiders was some of Pickett’s high moments last season where he was accurate with his ball placement at times with his first option reads and was a little bit of a threat with his legs where when that plays out Pickett looks more the part of a confident quarterback when he’s rolling out to his left. At the end of the day Matt Canada had a very positive night. There were multiple situations where Pittsburgh scheme wise was a step ahead of the Raiders. Pittsburgh’s formations countered what they believed the Raiders were going to do and it led to some quick gains, and most impressive in that department was the game ending 3rd and 2 call on the Allen Robinson six-yard reception where Canada out-schemed the Raiders.

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Third Down: Another two-sack game for T.J. Watt and every week we could talk about how special of a player Watt is. Las Vegas had no answers. Enjoy the greatness we’re witnessing………. Elsewhere, splash plays from weak links on the defense ending up being the story for Pittsburgh in the win. A two Interception night from Levi Wallace and Patrick Peterson adding an interception saw Pittsburgh intercept Jimmy Garoppolo three times in the win. Davante Adams torching the Steelers secondary with 13 receptions for 172 yards and 2 touchdowns is an afterthought with the splash plays the Steelers created and Garoppolo’s poor decision making…………

.A major big picture development in the win is rookie DT Keeanu Benton who is already an ascending player on the D-line………

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Fourth Down: AFC North Bottled Up after Three Weeks

Pittsburgh will enter Week 4 tied atop with the AFC North with a 2-1 record and head to Houston to face the Texans (1-2) in week 4, a game that always had a ‘W’ next to it before the season. How Houston’s defense held down Trevor Lawrence, C.J. Stroud being better than expected this early and with that offensive line will give some pause that this could be a tougher game than expected before the Week 5 showdown with the Ravens (2-1).