49ers 30, Stillers 14 ���. Nov 17, 2003 ����Game #10
Stillers-Niners Postgame
Analysis and Grades
The
Stillers traveled to San Fran in hope of crawling back into the race for the
lowly AFC North.� Instead, the Stillers
stunk and sputtered, getting soundly whipped by the 49ers, and now come
crawling back home to Pittsburgh with their tails between their legs after an
embarrassing beating on Monday Night Football.���
Grades:
QB:�
Maddox played ok at times, but was scattershot at times and just long
on several deep throws.� He mad a nice
play on the first series, eluding pressure and scrambling to his right, and
then hitting Plex for 11 yards for a clutch 1D on 3d & 7.� But he threw too long &/or too high to
Plex on at least 4 occasions, and he was off the mark on several other
incompletions.� The INT was obviously
not his fault, and he was victimized by at least 5 drops. B-.�
RB:�
The Almighty Savior, Fat Jerome Bettis, started again at RB, and once
again did little.� He had a nice 1-foot
TD plunge, and he caught 2 balls for 15 yards.�
On the ground, he averaged a feeble 3 yards a crack on 13 carries.� Amoz did little on the ground, rushing 5
times for negative-2 yards.� Amoz did
chip in nicely in the passing game, snaring 5 balls, including two screens for
9 yards (on 3d & 9) and for 15 yards.�
Haynes had a nice run on 3d & 7 on a SG pitchout, gaining 9.� In sum, this was yet another opponent that
has two better backs than any on the Stiller roster, which is
rather sad.� C.�
FB: Kreider opened the way for Bettis
on a few nice gains, to include gains of 7 and 14.� On the down side, Kreider whiffed on a block of Bryant Young on
the reverse in the 1Q, leading to a 2-yard loss.� B.�
WR:�
A spotty day for this WR corps.�
Plex led the way with 6 grabs and a nice 3rd down grab on the first
series, but was never able to make the big play.� He was just a half-foot away on some deep
balls.� On a deep lob down the hashes
late in the 2Q, Plex kind of alligator-armed it and the ball glanced off his
fingertips.� Ward had a rough day.�� He foolishly decided to run backwards on a
WR screen throw by El on 2d & 2, which lost 7 yards.� He failed to come down with a deep ball in
the 1Q, although Plummer got a hand in after Ward had his hands on the ball,
and the ball dropped to the ground.� In
the 3Q, Ward was open on a well-thrown bomb, but just dropped the ball, and
then tumbled into the turf and hurt his neck and tongue.� To his credit, the ever-tough Ward came back
and played.� Randle El finally caught
his first TD catch of the season, making a nice lunge to get into the
EZ.� But late in the 4Q, El had a drop
on 4th & 1.� Chris Doering started
off shabbily enough, dropping an easy crosser on 3d & 6 that killed the
drive.� But he came back, making a
splendid over-the-shoulder catch on a fade-stop for a huge 21-yard play on 3d
& 7, which kept the drive alive for a Steeler score 6 plays later.� He also had some nice RAC work on 2 other
grabs.� In fact, Doering averaged as
many yards per catch (15.3) as did Plex and El, and far more than Ward, making
it puzzling why Billy Cowher and Mike Mularkey ignored this man until just last
week versus Arizona.� The drops hurt the
grade here.� C.�
TE:�
Jay Riemersma was thrown a well-thrown pass some 20 yards downfield, and
he allowed it to clang off his shoulder pad, leading to a SF INT.� Very poor.�
He also whiffed on the first play of the game, which led to a 1-yard
loss.� Tuman grabbed 1 pass for 10
yards.� Mark Breuner feebly flailed --
with all the toughness and intensity of a quarterback -- at Parrish at the PIT
48-yard line on the long INT return, which allowed Parrish to saunter another
28 yards to the Stiller 20-yard line and then kick a chipshot FG 3 plays
later.� D.��
OL: The O-line had a decent game.� Sure, the run blocking wasn't devastating,
but they did open up some holes.� And
once the Niners blew the game wide open in the 3Q, the Stillers were forced to
play catchup football and abandon the run.�
The pass protection was pretty solid.�
Hartings allowed the first sack with a half-hearted chicken wing that
did nothing to slow down Ulbrich, and Faneca allowed Carter to spin back to the
inside and nab Maddox during a 3-man rush.�
On the whole, Maddox had enough time to throw.� Hartings was flagged for a really ticky-tack holding call, which
negated a big gain on a Bettis screen.�
Vincent foolishly moved on a 3rd & inches play, which was flagged
for a false start.� B-.�
DL:�
The D-line held its own against a good offense.� Hampton had few problems against Newberry, who
is one of the better centers in the league.�
Fat Casey was tough at the POA (point of attack) and active up and down
the LOS.� Smitty batted a pass.�� Kimo chipped in some.� B-.�
LB:�
A real low point for this crew; probably the worst overall game they've
collectively had the entire season.�
None of the LBs really shone bright.�
Farrior and Bell were pretty active, but stuffed few
plays.� Bell is simply being tasked to
read and react far too much, instead of playing the kind of attacking football
he was allowed to play as a rookie.�
Porter was far too quiet.� On
Barlow's long TD jaunt, Porter got sealed to the inside, and to make matters
worse, got shoved into Bell, thereby taking two LBs out of the play and giving
Barlow plenty of room to burst through the LOS.� The pass rush was a farce.�
Jason GilDong, who accumulated all that cheese and slop last week on
unblocked plays and Dong Sacks, did absolutely nothing the entire evening.� In fact, the 49ers quite often allowed a RB
to solo block Jason on pass plays, and Jason did nothing more than
tittyjoust and play pom-pom pullaway.�
Wonder why the Niners committed no turnovers?� Ask the LB crew, which is the gang that is supposed to make the
big plays on this defense.� D.�
DB:�
Once again, the secondary allowed an average QB to look like the second
coming of Joe Montana and Danny Marino.�
Rattay played pitch & catch the entire game, hitting open receivers
time after time.� The Ratt -- similar to
Tim Slouch and Marc Bulger -- finished the game with an astronomical QB rating
of around 130.� Sad Scott was whipped
badly in the 1Q on the Owens' 61-yard TD bomb.�
Scott was up on Owens, but refused to chuck him off the LOS, instead
waiting until Owens was 6 yard downfield before initiating some contact.� Owens gladly shrugged that off, and then ran
right by Scott, who claimed afterwards that he lost the ball in the
lights.� The truth was that Scott lost
Owens around the SF 46-yard line.�
Wasn't it Sad Scott who was proclaiming, just a month ago, how great he
is and how he'll "show everyone" during the remainder of the
season?� Townsend played ok at the other
corner, although he struggled a couple times with his angle on passcatchers
after they made the catch.� Logan was
beaten by Beasley on the out-and-up for a crushing 28-yard TD that sealed the
deal.� Burnt Alexander, as usual, did
absolutely nothing the entire game.� He
waved at receivers and never once made a play on a passed ball.� On Barlow's long TD, he blitzed and had a
perfect shot at Barlow, but took a foolishly wide angle and then flailed -- a
la Jason GilDong, the team captain -- and Barlow was off to the races.� Ike Taylor saw a good amount of PT and
acquitted himself well.� Troy Pola had a
couple of sticks after catches.� Watching
Niner safety Tony Parrish dislodge the ball from Plex near the goal line with a
crushing hit late in the game provided the saddening realization that not once
this entire season has a Stiller D-back done something similar to an opposing
receiver.� D-. �
Spec
teams:� We've been inundated for the past couple
weeks about "how pleased" Billy is with his spec teams, and how great
and "special" the special teams have become.� Mind you, aside from the El TD jaunts, the
spec teams have been rather ordinary and average the past few weeks, and have
had their share of botulism in the form of flags, a blocked punt, and so
forth.� Tonight, the spec teams were
their usual vomit-laden selves.� El
muffed one punt that SF nearly recovered, and he coughed up the football on a
KO return, which SF quickly turned into 7 points on the very next play (TD pass
to Beasley).� In the 2Q, El foolishly
allowed a punt to hit the ground at the 17-yard line, rather than calling for
the FC.� The ball rolled to the Stiller
4.� Josh Miller, supposedly the Great
God of Punting, had a wretched, gawdawful night.� He shanked one punt all of 30 yards, and later on dropped a
perfect snap and had to quick-kick the ball for a piddly 23 yards, which set up
an easy FG for San Fran.� Josh was
credited with a 58-yard punt in the 2Q, but don't be fooled.� Niner returner Jimmy Williams slipped as he
went to field the punt, and the punt landed at the SF 18, and then rolled all
the way to the 4, for the extra 14 yards.�
Jeff Reed missed a 45-yard FG in the 4Q.� The lone bright spot was Ike Taylor's 36-yard KO return in the
4Q.� The next time you read bullshit
from the Pittsburgh media about how "special" the Stiller special
teams are, remind yourselves that these special teams are riding the same short
bus as most members of the Pittsburgh media.�
D-.�
OC:�
Mike Mularkey had a chance on national TV to audition for a
head-coaching job come January.�
Instead, he laid the big goose egg with some utterly wretched
playcalling.� The highlight of
embarrassment was in the 2Q, with the Stillers facing a 3rd & 5-inches at
SF 45.� Mularkey decides to get cutesy,
employing more motion and movement than a Christine Aguilera concert, and
Vincent nudged just before the snap for a false start.� On the ensuing 3rd & 5, Mularkey,
feeling deprived at the loss of a cutesy quickie-toss to Amoz the preceding
play, called for a SG handoff to Haynes, who then handed off to Amoz.� Problem was, this play took about 7 seconds
to develop, and Engelberger jumped atop Haynes and then Amoz for the stuff of -10.� Calling cutesy bullshit two plays in a row
is the kind of grab-bag stupidity that made Gay Sherman infamous.� Mularkey ran the Grab Bag Offense the entire
evening, rarely ever setting up anything off the success of something or off
play-action or pump fakes.� And facing a
smallish, but speedy defense, Mularkey played right into their hands with
cutesy bullshit that was continually engulfed.�
D.���
DC:�
Tiny Tim Lewis against played the role of the mental midget, allowing an
opposing QB to stand for eons in the pocket, totally unfettered, and playing
pitch 'n catch with his receivers and carving up the Softee Defense as easily
as carving up a Thanksgiving turkey.� A
Cleveland TV station, which I viewed on satellite TV, actually showed Tim
Slouch and Kelly Holcomb fist-fighting outside a player's house during the
halftime intermission, presumably to obtain the rights to get the starting
assignment next week and thus impress the coach with astronomical stats and
prop up passing numbers for offseason salary haggling.� Fat Madden blathered ad nauseum before the
game about how "complicated the Steeler 3-4 defense is" and other
assorted babble.� From an opponent's
point of view, Tiny Tim's defense is about as complicated as the coloring books
used by children in preschools all across America.� D-.�
HC:� The legions
of Billy Cowher fans have fought off the cold, hard truths all season, and
perhaps they are slowly seeing the light: Billy Cowher has lost this
football team and clearly has long outlived his usefulness in Pittsburgh.� The players aren't responding whatsoever to
Cowher's tired, worn out saws and babble.�
Communication is job #1 for an NFL head coach, and when a head coach
cannot even communicate something so simple as to accept a San Fran penalty on
a mediocre Steeler punt, that coach clearly has become as useless as tits on a
bore hog.� Most folks are pointing to
that 14-second spurt in the 3Q, in which SF exploded for 2 TDs.� But let's not forget what preceded that
fateful spurt.� On 3rd and 19 at the
Stiller 45, with the Stillers having already scored on their opening drive of
the 2nd half, what did Billy Cowher order?��
A DRAW PLAY, which gained a paltry 3 yards.� With the season hanging in the balance, this could have easily been
considered 2-down territory, or, at the very least, the Stillers might have
broken a nice RAC or gotten a downfield completion or even a PI flag.� This was pussy football, plain and simple,
and it was followed 3 plays later by the Barlow TD jaunt, and then the Beasley
TD reception.� When you play pussy
football, you get blitzed by those kind of 14-second spurts.� You saw a rather lethargic effort by most
Stillers tonight.� Surprised?�� Why so?��
After all, when a veteran has virtually no chance of getting benched or
even cut in the offseason, why try harder? Why lay your body on the line?� And with the Stillers at 3-7, Cowher will
now wait at least another 3 weeks before making any more personnel moves. After
all, with things going so smoothly and successfully, why make changes in
personnel?�� Bottom line: there's not a
more overrated, more over hyped, more underachieving coach in the NFL right
now, than Little Billy Cowher.� F.���
Synopsis:�
As I'd noted in my pre-game analysis, the Stiller had yet to beat a team
that was playing quality football at the time they played.� Baltimore was forced to play the opener with
a rookie QB playing in his first-ever NFL game. �The Bungals were still finding their way with their brand new
coach when the Stillers beat them in week #3.�
And the Cardinals are one of the NFL's biggest laughingstocks, especially
after getting destroyed by Cleveland this past weekend.� Many Steeler fans are still clinging to the
fantasy of, "�.But we can still make the playoffs".� This is no playoff-caliber team.� This team is a pathetic joke.� Sure, there is playoff caliber talent on
this roster, but with a stubborn, myopic coaching staff, you're left with an
underachieving team that won't stand a chance even if they somehow stumble into
a playoff berth in the NFL's weakest division.�
What Steeler fans need to be doing right now is shedding the blind and
dumb loyalty to Billy Cowher, and allowing themselves to see the cold, hard
truth about Marty Jr.� One man is
responsible for this embarrassing 2003 debacle, and his name is Billy
Cowher.� A win next week over the hated
Browns could at least salvage a small modicum of pride, but another loss to
those hated Browns will further embarrass Steeler fans.� Stay tuned this week for the GilDong Report
and the Stiller-Browns pregame analysis.�