Steelers 35 - Raiders 3

Hey, it's ALWAYS a pleasure to put a beat-down on the Hated Raiders, and the Steelers certainly did that this afternoon at Heinz Field.

The most amazing thing to me about this game was the fact that the Steelers rolled up 163 yards in penalties and still managed to eek out a 32 point win. If nothing else, this game exposes the Raiders, who were becoming trendy again, as a pretender to NFL royalty. The fact they the AFC West is a somewhat weak division is the only thing that might keep them in contention over the final six weeks of the season.

And on the subject of penalties, I was as critical as anybody of James Harrison earlier in the season, but I think that the officials have gone a bit overboard in targeting Harrison and the Steelers in some of those penalties that were called today. Even the CBS announcers were critical of the zebras in their zealousness this afternoon.

I was surprised to see the Steelers still throwing at the end of the game. The screen that resulted in the final touchdown appeared to this untrained eye to be merely an effort to get a first down and maintain possession. I am wondering if coach Mike would have sent out instructions to "take a knee" if that was the only result of the play. But as Dan Fouts said on the telecast, if you were rookie back Isaac Redman and you caught that pass with nothing in front of you, what else could you do but run it in for the TD.

I also have to comment on the TV broadcast which made the obligatory reference to the Immaculate Reception game of 1972. Ian Eagle and Dan Fouts wanted to know if "the ball hit the ground" before Franco Harris caught it. As anyone with an ounce of memory and a sense of history know, the ball not hitting the ground was NEVER the question in that play. The question was, did the ball hit Jack Tatum or Frenchy Fuqua before Harris caught it. That was the rules issue in 1972.