The Pittsburgh Steelers are coming off of a victory in Week 3 against the Las Vegas Raiders in their first away game of the 2023 season, and the victory has them sitting with a 2-1 record. They are currently in first place in the AFC North, and second place in the AFC as a whole. Their second win of the season wasn't easy, the team had a 16-point lead going into the fourth quarter. Yet the defense allowed the Raiders to get it back to a one possession game, and had their Head Coach Josh McDaniels not made a weird decision, they could've won.
Steelers' Ike Taylor Says Team Earned Their Victory Despite Bad Decision By The Raiders
The Steelers had a primetime game in Week 3 on Sunday Night Football, so many football fans all over the world were watching. The Steelers scored 23 unanswered points and had a 23-7 lead going into the fourth quarter. However, in true Steelers fashion, the game didn't end without some dramatics. The Raiders scored a touchdown and got the two-point conversion that followed to make it a one possession game. They were driving with a little over two minutes left in regulation, and had the ball on the Steelers eight-yard line on a fourth-and-four. Rather than trying to score a touchdown to have a chance to tie the game, McDaniels decided to kick a field goal.
The Raiders showed faith in their defense and expected to be able to get the ball back with some time left since they still had the two minute warning and all three of their timeouts. The Steelers offense was able get a first down on a third down play where Kenny Pickett completed a pass to Allen Robinson II, so they were able to run some more plays and punt the ball back to the Raiders with just :15 seconds left in the game. Levi Wallace wound up getting an interception which iced the victory for the Steelers.
Due to the bad decision by McDaniels, many football fans have been saying that the Raiders seemingly "gave" the victory to the Steelers since they decided not to try to tie the game up with minutes left. Former Steelers cornerback and current scout for the team, Ike Taylor disagrees with the notion that Pittsburgh was "given" the victory, but says that they earned it on his podcast, Bleav In Steelers.
"The Steelers gifted that win to themselves. So winning ain't got nothing to do with other people's decisions at the end of the day, as long as you got a W in the left hand column. That decision made by Josh McDaniels, he can have it. That W on the left side of the Steelers record, we love it."
Some might say that the Steelers were bailed out by the decision made by the Las Vegas coaching staff, however there were a lot of questionable calls made against the Steelers towards the end of the game that kept the Raiders alive in the game. These calls included a soft roughing the passer penalty against Minkah Fitzpatrick that should have resulted in a third down and long, but instead gave the Raiders an automatic first down and put them half the distance to the end zone.
The roughing the passer call was especially questionable because Pickett was hit in the face and taken to the ground after throwing a pass earlier in the game on what many thought was a missed roughing the passer call. Las Vegas also got a new set of downs after they attempted to kick a field goal, but a flag was thrown on the Steelers for an "illegal procedure" when DeMarvin Leal supposedly pushed off a Raiders player's back to propel himself in the air to try and block the kick. Another questionable call was made when the Steelers were called for pass interference on the Raiders two-point conversion attempt when the ball was not catchable.
The Steelers may have benefitted from the odd decision made by McDaniels at the end of the game, but they were also put at a disadvantage from all of the penalties called against them that kept the Raiders in the game. Due to these two factors off-setting, the Steelers were able to earn their victory, just as Taylor said.
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