Stillers 30, Clev 27 ……. Sep 7, 2014…………Game # 1
Stillers-Browns Postgame Analysis and Grades
The Stillers jumped out to a commanding 27-3 lead at the half. They then spent basically the entire 2H shitting the bed, playing a lame, lackluster style of football, particularly on the D side of the ball. Cleve, with the lowliest offense imaginable in today’s NFL, stormed back to tie the score at 27. Only a Suisham FG as time expired prevented this from being an embarrassing fiasco. Wait a minute…it still was an embarrassing fiasco.
Grades:
QB: Ben had a solid first half, followed by a subpar 2H. He toyed with the weak Clev D. He racked up plenty o’ yards, but only 1 TD pass and a miserable INT in the 1H. B
RB:
Bell - solid game, with 21 rushes for 109 and 6 grabs for 88. He stuttered a bit too much for my taste. Sure, there’s patience, and then there is absurd stuttering on top of stuttering on a simple dive play. A-
Blount – Good 7-yard TD run. Not sure how long he’ll be content with 4 touches a game.
Archer: 4 carries, 6 yards. He’s just so fast and elusive…! Wowza. He reminds me of Gale Sayers and Tony Dorsett. C-
FB: Will Johnson played only sparingly, if at all.
WR:
Brownie – superb game. Showed he is the anti-Mike Wallace by making multiple pluck catches with only his hands. Shows no signs of letting up after his All Pro season. A+
Pinkie Wheaton - Hey, he finally did something productive !! Hauled in a 40-yard deep ball, and had 6 grabs, as many as all of last season !! Clutch grab to set up GW FG. Am stunned. B+
Justin Brown – chipped in nicely with 3 grabs.
Archer: 0 receptions. He’s just so fast & explosive, and quick, too. Good thing Doltbert rabidly reached for this smurf in the 3rd round…!
Lance “Yancey” Moore: Did not dress, due to a nagging groin.
TE:
Miller - 3 grabs for 26. Flagged for a hold.
Spaeth - dressed, and wasted oxygen, plus a scare spot on the 45-man game-day dress roster.
OL:
Beacham - Committed a stupid, needless hold that negated an early Bell TD and forced a FG. Got totally abused by Paul Kruger for a Clev sack in the 3Q. I’ll say it for the 39th time right now, and will say it again and again – the shortest OT in the NFL has no business starting at LT on a team with playoff aspirations. NONE.
Gilbert - FatAss Marcus got mauled back into the QB for a sack on the 1st series of the game. He then got savagely mauled by former Pitt DE Jabaal Sheard for a sack in the 4Q. Gee, it’s a good thing GM Kevin Doltbert rushed out to extend this stiff. Even better, I suppose, that Dolbert overpaid him.
Foster - Played adequately.
Pouncey – surprisingly made it through a game without enjury.
DeCastro - played ok. Nothing jaw dropping.
DL:
Cam Thomas: Started and did little. No solos and 1 assist.
Keisel - got a fair amount of PT subbing for Thomas. Had a solo and 1 assist in a marginal effort.
McLendon - 3 solos in a fairly quiet afternoon.
Heyward – Had an okay game. Legit sack late in the 4Q was a big play. Wasn’t stout enough at the POA on widish running plays.
LB:
Timmons – Good first half, fairly quiet in the 2H. Got burned by Cameron on a deep seamer in the 1H.
Shaz – active first game. Had two big backfield stuffs. Had a near INT. 5 solos and 1 A.. Over-pursued on Tate’s 25-yard run.
Worilds - I thought Big LaMarr went to the Raidas. What, praytell, was he doing on the turf at Heinz Field today….? Oh wait, that was Jason Worilds, who did a splendid job today imitating Loafing LaMarr. The Hokie Hooker basically stood around nearly the entire game, not much different from a hooker aimlessly standing on a street corner. Sure enough, any number of idiots will point to his sack and proclaim how great he played. It was a Dong Sack ™, in which he was SOLO blocked by a non-descript backup TE, Jim Dray. In the 1H, he had West dead to rights in the backfield, but stupidly took an INSIDE angle and got juked out of his jock to the outside by West, turning a sure 3-yard loss into a NINE yard gain. In the 2H, Cleveland smartly and continuously ran at Big Jason, who did little more than titty-joust with the TE assigned to block him, and Clev repeatedly ran for huge chunks of yards. He sucked ass, plain and simple. Quick – Kevin Doltbert needs to lavish this stiff with a jumbo 5-year contract worth $72 million !! F
Jones - Had a couple of adequate plays. Unfortunately, there were about 16 other plays in which he got sucked in, or fooled badly on a reverse boot, or just was out of position to do much of anything. He did gather a Dong Sack in the 1H. C+
DB:
Ike - in the 2d half, Cleve finally got smart and started going after Ike, and they toyed and abused him. He allowed a CAKE easy INT to clang off his hands on a deep lob in the 4Q. A few plays later, he got badly tooled by a complete nobody, Travis Benjamin, for the game-tying TD. Ike was also flagged for his usual per-game penalty, this a stupid facemask after allowing a 16-yar completion, which ignited the first Clev TD drive. D-
Pola - Collected a lot of slop stops and slop assists, but had a meager impact on this game.
Mitchell – very quiet in his first Stiller game.
Gay - Made 2 big plays in the final Clev drive, which forced a punt from deep in Clev territory.
Sharko Thomas – mostly not permitted to play. Still hasn’t memorized the entire playbook in 3 foreign languages. He did slightly injure an Achilles.
C. Allen - Had a bunch of slop stops, but allowed some open receivers. In the 4Q, with the game on the line, Cortez feebly wave-tackled at West, as though West was dripping with the Ebola virus. A 5-yard gain turns into a 22-yard gainer, and Clev tied the game a few plays later. Quick – maybe Kevin Doltbert should rush out and give this fellow a 5-year extension…! Oh wait, he just did, on Saturday. C-
Spec teams:
Wing – punted okay.
Suisham - Booted GW FG. 3 of 3 on FGs.
Archer – Fielded a KO at the GL and brought it all the way out….to the 12 yard line. Brilliant !! Had 2 KO returns for 29 yards. He’s just so fast and explosive. An absolute steal in the 3rd round. Colbert once again fools the rest of the NFL.
AB – good punt returns. He tried to hurdle the Clev punter on a big return, and when the timing was off and the punter wasn’t as low as AB anticipated, AB simply used his cleat to kick and then push off the punter, and was flagged for “unnecessary roughness”. Bizarre. If a rumbling fullback literally tramples over a hapless CB, is that unnecessary roughness as well….? The dumber ST play, actually, ocurred during the Clev punt late in the game. Tonio allowed the short punt to land and roll, which rolled at least an extra 12 yards, plus it chewed up several more critical seconds than if AB had simply FC the ball.
Golden had perhaps the pass of the game, passing out of punt formation to Antwon Blake for a 25-yard gain.
OC: A very nice 1H, followed by a bag ‘o barf 2H. I utterly despised the whaleshit counter on 3d & 1 at the Clev 41 with 4 min left in the game. You have Blount in at RB, with this supposedly star-studded OL, facing a weak Clev defense. Instead of plunging Blount, Haley calls for a SG delay HO, with a TE and an OG pulling, which allowed 4 (four) defenders to penetrate the backfield and cause a 4-yard loss. Complete barf. Getting Pinkie Wheaton integrated into the gameplan was a pleasant surprise.
DC: Dick was handed all sorts of luxuries today. At home, he got to face the woeful Clev offense, one that most assuredly will be in the bottom 3 of the NFL by the time the season ends. The QB Dick got to face today, the inept Brian Hoyer, was making his 5th career start. The Clev offense spent the entire 1H shooting itself in their collective feet, with a vast array of misfires, dropped passes, foolish penalties, and overall clumsiness. The Stiller O chewed a ton of clock, and the Stillers waltzed to the locker room at halftime with a comfy 27-3 lead, at HOME, against a bedraggled, weak, inept Clev offense.
We’ve all seen Dick piss away comfy leads these past 6+years, but I doubt anyone thought Dick could actually urinate this one away. Adding to the ease of Dick’s task, the Browns were without starting RB Ben Tate and starting TE Jordan Cameron for the 2nd half. Undaunted, what did Dick do? Why, he fell asleep, and sure as a bear shits in the woods, Dick pissed away a TWENTY FOUR point lead in the 2H to the hapless Browns. He allowed Cleve to score on each of their first four possessions -- TD, TD, FG, and TD. The drive that “forced” a FG wasn’t even a “force” nor a “stop” by the defense. On a 3d & 1 at the PIT 5, there was a colossal miscommo between Hoyer and his RB, and with no one to hand off to, Hoyer kept the pig for a 2-yard loss. With the way Cleve was gashing Dick’s defense in the 2H, had Hoyer been able to hand off to anybody -- even the punter or placekicker -- Clev most likely converts the play for a 1st down.
All the while in the 2H, Dick, as is his penchant, went soft. Blitzes? Very, very few. Pressure in the face of the QB ? NONE. All of those “diabolical schemes” and “clever disguises” that we’re constantly inundated with about “the revered, 77-year old coach who is in the Hall of Fame”? As useless as tits on a boar hog. Nothing Dick did fooled or confused the green-horned QB, Hoyer. Adjustments at halftime? NONE. Hell, Dick fell asleep for his afternoon nap. Clev went hurry-up in the 2H, and Dick, as slow and dullardly as they come, was totally hapless and helpless. And remember -- this wasn’t Manning throwing to Julius Thomas, or Tom Brady whipping the ball to Gronko. This was Brian Hoyer, with such vaunted weapons as rookie RB Terrance West, WR Isaiah Crowell, (another rookie!), and WR Andrew “Pee Pee “Hawkins, all 5 foot 7 inches of him. Yet there was Hoyer, totally unfettered, completing passes to WIDE open receivers, with the closest defender some 5, 6, even 8 yards away. A complete bag o’ vomit by a coordinator who clearly has reached the time to move on to his life’s work.
Clev spent most of the 2H running right AT Big Jason Worilds, who was continually mauled or at least stand-offed by a SOLO tight end. What did Dick do?? N-O-T-H-I-N-G. NOTHING at all. Never sat Worilds for a few plays. Never had Worilds adjust his stance, his leverage, or his technique. Jack shit nothing, out of a DC who is worth jack shit nothing.
A large part of me wishes Cleve had forced OT and had one more chance to march down the field, and then assclown Clueless Dick even more. F-
HC: Mike Dumblin saw a 2H meltdown full of lethargy, numerous stupid penalties, and overall slop. Sure enough, you’ll hear all sorts of babble and clever clichés from this simpleton on Tuesday, but that doesn’t hide the fact that this daft simpleton stood around and did nothing while his team pissed away a 24-point halftime lead, at home, against a woefully inept opponent. D-
Synopsis: A slop win against a shit team. See me late Thur evening to see how they fare on the road against a moderately competent team in the PoeBirds, who dropped their opener to Cinci.
(Still Mill and Stillers.com -- when it comes to the analysis of the Pittsburgh Stillers, no one else comes close….)
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