Stillers Coaching Grades - 2003 season��

 

As with the player grades, no nationally recognized analyst has spent the rigor and research to study the game tapes as this one has.� Nor have any covered and analyzed this coaching staff to the extent this one has.�� As such, herewith are the final grades for the 2003 Stillers coaching staff.� ��

 

Special Teams:� Kevin Spencer didn't have a weekly occurrence of fiascos, but there were loads of slop, shoddy play, miscues, and give-ups of big plays by this spec teams unit.� Throughout the season, the Stillers rarely ever got a big play from the spec teams in the form of a blocked kick or a forced fumble.� El provided a spark once in a while in the punt return game, but otherwise these special teams were as mediocre as mediocre can be, and at times, they were well worse than that.� C-.�

 

Tight Ends: Ken Whisenhunt is the NFL version of the Maytag repairman.� There's not a more wasteful, more useless coaching slot in the entire NFL than the TE coach for the Stillers.� It seems rather possible that any 6th round pick could fall off the couch each week and snare 1 pass per game, culminating in a 17-catch season.� The Stillers having a TE coach is about as useful as a liquor store employing a doctor to warn customers about the negative aspects of alcohol consumption.� The Wise Hunt will have far greater challenges as the new Stiller OC.� C+.�

 

WR:� Kenny Jackson had yet another mediocre season, and resigned soon thereafter.� Plex Burress still displays some incredibly poor habits, to include leading the league in false starts and allowing more balls to hit his chest and facemask than does the typical NHL goaltender.� The Stillers got nothing out of Lee Mays, despite the tremendous outpouring of how great this guy looked at camp.� Randle El plateaud as a receiver in 2003, which wasn't a good sign at all.� B-.�

 

OL: Former Hog Russ Grimm completed his 3rd season in Pgh and did an ok good job.� In some respects, though, Grimm had an off season -- a season in which he didn't get enough out of what he had to work with.� Gandy departed in free agency, so months before the season began, Grimm knew he had a hole to fill.� Having been with the team the past 2 season, Grimm knew full well what he had to work with, including promising 3rd-year youngsters Vincent, Okobi, and Nkwenti (the man Grimm fawned and gushed over soon after he was drafted).� Then guard Kendall Simmons had the double-whammy in the summertime -- he had ELBOW SURGERY on June 11th and a diabetic condition was confirmed on JULY 26th, some six weeks before opening day.� Grimm responded to the Gandy/Simmons situations the way a rabid chain smoker responds to the warnings on the side of cigarette packaging -- he did nothing.� Instead, the Stillers ended up with a total stiff -- Fordham -- at RT, and a total gimp at RG, Simmons.� The result was a fiasco that the team never recovered from, and clearly, Grimm deserves some blame for the refusal to push Coach Cowhead to play some youngsters; the overt inability to see how weak Simmons would be; and the unbelievable decision to start a human turnstile like Todd Fordham at RT.� C.�

 

RB: Dick Hoak has been here nearly forever, and he's the one coach whom I've always had the highest regard. The guy has continually gotten good play from non-spectacular RBs, ever since Franco moved on. Aside from Hawthorne and Abercrombie, both of whom were soft, pathetic excuses for football players, Hoak has goaded superb results from the likes of Pollard, Earnest Jackson (given up for dead by the Chargers), Merril Hoge, Barry Foster, LeRoy Thomson, BamBam, Pegram, and Bettis.� Hoak is a primary reason why I've never been giddy about retaining The Tubby Tailback, Jerome Bettis, because if there's one thing this team has consistently been able to do, and do well, , it�s develop running backs.� Obviously, if Bettis is sent packing, Hoak will have some work to do to prepare for the '04 season.� A-.�

 

QB: Tom Clements finished his 3rd season in Pgh and did an ok job.� Maddox regressed a bit this season, and Clements deserves some blame for that.� I would have liked to promote Clements to OC, but the Bills beat us to the punch.� Now, the team that was so cheap and stubborn to hire a QB coach that they were the last NFL team to do so, might very well eschew replacing Clements.� B-.��

 

Off. Coord:� Mularkey also finished his 3rd season as the OC.� Unfortunately, this was his worst.� Mularkey spent the preseason dabbling and fooling around, and when the regular season began, Mularkey had no clue as to what his offense's identity was.� Then The Mad Dabbler spent the first several games dabbling and grab-bagging, never sure if he had a running game, a passing game, both, or none.� The use of gadget plays is a nice change of pace, especially if it can exploit an opponent's weakness, but Mularkey grew fond in '03 to call gadget plays whenever a fancy caught his whim.� Mularkey spent far too much time in '03 grab-bagging instead of game-planning, setting-upping, and exploiting.� This all came to a negative fruition in the loss to the Jets, in which Muarlkey had the offense passing, passing, passing in a blizzard-like snowstorm, despite the fact that the Stillers never trailed by more than 6 points the entire game.� Mularkey was a far sight better than Kevin Gaypride and Ray Sherman, but '03 takes the luster off his prior good work in '01-'02.� He'll have his hands full as HC for the Bills.� C-.�

 

DL: John Mitchell did another sound job with the D-line.� He got strong play from Casey Hampton and Aaron Smith, and got a somewhat surprisingly stellar year from graybeard DE Kimo von Olhoffen.� It's time for Mitch to groom and develop some backups, because Clancy is clearly sub-par and Bailey is only marginally better than a journeyman.� B+�

 

LB: Keith Butler replaced Mike Archer last January and did an ok job.� Of course, the Stiller LB coach has one of the easiest jobs in the country -- right behind the guy who serves as the taste tester at the Jack Daniels distillery -- as the LB coach in the 3-4 defense. The entire defense is built around making his 4 LBs look like golden boys.� Coach Butt did an ok job of not doing anything to screw things up, but clearly Butler didn't do much to get the maximum out of this crew.� Joey Porter spent most of the season dropped back in coverage.� Ken Bell saw a lot of bench time on 3rd downs after a foolish experiment to try him at DE.� And Jason Gildong saw far too much work while continually screwing the pooch with flaccid play.� The lack of big plays by this LB corps are an indictment of a coaching staff that once again failed to utilize the 3-4 defense for what is was designed for, and that is confuse, disrupt, and make plays.� Butler should have some new blood to work with if GilDong is rightfully cut.�� C-.

 

DB: Willy Robinson worked his 4th year as the DB coach, and the results were once again downright horrible.� The secondary made very, very few plays on passed balls the entire season, and routinely got scorched, tooled, used, and abused by opposing receivers.� Robinson might not have the greatest collection of talent in the DB corps, but many teams have gotten far better effectiveness from their secondary with a whole lot less.� And no one held a gun to anyone's head and ordered a benching of DeShea Townsend all these years, while DW and Charred Scott stunk up the gridiron.� It's pretty bad when you're a DB coach and there's a robot continually yelping out, "Danger, Danger, Will Robinson!!"�� D-.�

 

Def: Coord: Tim Lewis entered his 4th season as the DC of a veteran-laden, experienced defense that returned 10 starters, with the only new starter being veteran safety Mike Logan.� This, like Archer's job, was as enviable as serving as a talent evaluator for a Las Vegas strip club.�� Nonetheless, Tiny Tim struggled as badly as the 1-legged man in the asskicking contest.� The defense foundered, stunk, and sputtered whenever they faced anything better than putrid opposition.� Tiny Tim never once got his defense in the mode of attack, disrupt, and kill.� Instead, it was always backpedal, tiptoe, react, and meekly stop the ballcarrier.� When you preach passivity, you get passivity, and that's precisely what Tiny Tim got.� Count to yourself the number of bone jarring hits the entire season by the defense.�� 3?� Maybe 4?�� That's outrageously pathetic.� In fact, that's an embarrassment.� Tiny Tim was also guilty of rarely ever putting his defensive playmakers -- most notably Porter and Bell -- in positions to MAKE PLAYS.� While the rest of the Pgh media was fawning all over Tiny Tim in 2001, this writer was over this sorry coach, and gave him a well-deserved D+ for his playoff grade.� Last season, more people started taking notice that Tiny Tim isn't even 10% as smart and brilliant as he was previously made out to be.� Only Coughlin's fire and persistence will cover up for Tiny Tim's ineptitude for the Giants.� D.�

 

Head Coach: In 2002, Billy ran a country club at Latrobe in place of training camp, and the result was a disappointing season.� Never one to think and learn, Billy went out in 2003 and did the same thing, running his training camp as soft and posh as your typical, swank country club.� After going 2-1, the team went into a 5-game losing streak and never recovered, not once winning 2 consecutive games the entire season.�

 

There were numerous areas that Cowshit was horribly deficient in, to include:

 

� ���- Grooming of youngsters.� Despite injury, diabetes, and a major free agent loss, Billy refused to give ANY of his 3-year veteran linemen -- Nkwenti, Okobi, and Vincent -- even a remote shot at a starting job.� Rookie 2nd rounder Zo Jackson was deactivated the final 14 games of the season.� Rookie 1st rounder Troy Pola rotted for weeks before gradually being allowed to play, but only a little bit.� 2nd-year safety Chris Hope rotted nearly the entire season.� 4-year LB Clark Haggans acquitted himself well during Porter's 2-game absence at the start of the season, but then rarely ever saw the field on defense the rest of the season.�

 

�����- Allowing the goatrope on the OL.� Billy Cowher is totally reliant upon a veteran, fully experienced, fully healthy, fully gelled O-line.� Devoid of that, Billy Cowher is as confused, befuddled, and bewildered as an Islamic cleric in downtown Amsterdam.� Those who blame the injuries on the offensive line are as delusional and as head-in-the-sand as Billy Cowher himself.� Guard Kendall Simmons had the double-whammy in the summertime -- he had ELBOW SURGERY on June 11th and a diabetic condition was confirmed on JULY 26th, some six weeks before opening day.� What was Billy's plan when this all occurred?�� NOTHING.� As he often does, Billy sat fallow, and did nothing, anticipated nothing, and planned for nothing.� He pinned ALL of his hopes in Simmons coming back at 100% strength and conditioning after elbow surgery and diabetes treatment�something that had a 1 in a billion chance of ever happening.� And it's not like Billy had only castoffs and rookie free agents to plug the holes.� He had three linemen in their 3rd year in the NFL -- two of which were drafted by Billy, by the way -- and all of whom had attended 3 minicamps, 3 training camps, and 2 prior seasons worth of practice, film study, chalk talks, and so forth.� The goatrope that you saw on the O-line was, without question, entirely avoidable, and it should have been rectified by Billy Cowshit long before camp ever hit full stride.

 

��� �- Softee, passive defense.� Although Tiny Tim was the DC, let's not forget that defense is supposed to be Billy's forte'.� Billy used to love to spout off to the national media about, "There's 1 guy who's been here with this defense the whole time, and you're looking at him", but when his defense sucks and is a national embarrassment, Billy's nowhere to be found.� Cowher's acts all full of bravado and toughness, yet promulgates a defense that is as soft as Mr. Whipple and Charmin toilet paper.�

 

��� �- Grab-bag, not-sure-of-itself offense. �One man approved Mike Mularkey's game-plan at least 4 days before each game, and that man was Billy Cowher.� And one man had the authority to direct Mularkey to adjust fire in the midst of a game, as well as during halftime, and that man was Billy Cowher.�

 

In sum, only Billy Cowher could take a 10-win, 1-tie team from 2002, with a fair amount of talent and the fewest injuries in the NFL in 2003, and turn them into a sorry, sad-sack 6-10 team.� It's readily apparent -- at least to those without rose colored or black-&-gold colored glasses -- that this team will never win a Super Bowl under the dim-bulbed, stone-stupid management of Billy Cowher.� The road to perdition starts -- and ends -- with Billy Cowher.� F.�

 

(Still Mill and Stillers.com -- the only nationally read coverage on the Pittsburgh Stillers that has accurately predicted the how's and the why's of the past 3 Stiller playoff losses�.)