Huntley Demoted Behind Fu

As yunz should have seen by now, Bill Cowher is now so gleefully enamoured with RB Chris Fu, that Rick Huntley has been dropped down the depth chart behind Fu.

This is typical Cowher, at his worst.

Cowher has no concept of sticking with someone --- other than Kordell Stewart & Carlos Emmons --- for any length of time. Rather, Cowher immediately falls in love with whatever recent fad comes his way. Look at his 3rd string QBs....first Jim Miller, then Mike Quinn, then Gonzalez, then Wright, then Martin. Not a damn 1 of 'em were ever developed, because each summer, Cowher fell in love with the latest in fashion. Thank goodness Cowher isn't the financial investor for all of Rooney's millions. If he were, Rooney would be dead broke. Rather than buying stocks at a low price and holding onto them for a while, Cowher would jump at whatever "hot stock" happened to grab his fancy. He'd spend all his time chasing the "hot" (read, overvalued) stocks, while dumping stocks before they ever had a chance to appreciate in value.

Troy Edwards gets hurt, and then is demoted behind proven-to-be-a-3rd-receiver Hines Ward. Huntley gets hurt, and then is demoted behind Fu, a player who has some good qualities, but at the same time has drawbacks as well. Fu is a good plower who has some decent quickness, but in the quickness and speed department, he's no match for Rick Huntley, who has superior moves, cutting ability, vision, and speed. Sure, Fu looked good versus Jax, but on every good gainer he had, he was either running thru holes the width of the Squirrel Hill tunnel, or catching screen passes with 2 acres of empty land in front of him. This is not to say that there's no room at the table for a guy like Fu. There is. However, given the nature of defenses who are far better than the injury-riddled Jaguar defense, Fu will encounter the same problems Bettis did against the Ravens. Fu is a lil' quicker and faster than Bettis, but not nearly as much as Huntley or Zeroue.

This brings up another problem with the mulestubborn Cowher. With Cowher, it's an all-or-nothing proposition. Cowher CANNOT, in his own mind, give BOTH Hunt and Fu some work. It MUST be ONLY one or the other. Ditto for Amoz, who despite playing better on kick coverage than just about every other special teams player, is not allowed to be used a couple times a game to capitalize on his unique set of skills. This is the same logic that is applied to a guy like Malcolm Johnson, who cannot be inserted into red zone packages.....he either must be a #3 or #4 WR, or he cannot play at all. Earl Holmes had no value whatsoever in Cowher's eyes in '96 as a platoon player, or a backup to Jerry O., or a special teams head-hunter. Holmes either had to start, or he had to be deactivated. Period. Nothing in between these 2 opposite ends of the spectrum is permitted under the supreme dogma of Bill Cowhead, who has a baseball and soccer mentality in which he thinks that any player removed from the game cannot re-enter.

Want more lunacy? How about return-man Hank Poteat, who gained 31 yards on a kickoff and 30 yards on a punt, though a poorly thrown flag denied a 60-some yard return. Poteat is averaging 16.7 yds/punt return & 22.8 yards/kickoff return. "If he can continue to be the weapon he shows back there," Cowher said, "I think it would be foolish not to have him back there touching the ball four or five times a game."

Funny --- two weeks ago, Poteat was inactive against the Tennessee Titans, and it was Cowher who claimed afterward that "We can't afford the LUXURY (his word, not mind) of dressing a specialist when we have other needs to.......blahblahblah..." One week, Poteat is a totally unwanted, unnecessary luxury. Two weeks later, Cowher is claiming that he himself "would be foolish" to not have Hank in there to get some touches in order to enhance one of the worst offenses in pro football.

Typical Cowher. The grab-bag, grasp-at-whatever-straw-is-handy mentality pervades everything in his thought process.

The Still Mill