Stillers 24, Bolts 20 ……. Oct 12, 2015…………Game # 5
Stillers-Chargers Postgame Analysis and Grades
The Stillers went out west to SD to face the Chargers. The Chargers mostly toyed with the Stillers, but then Antwan Blake scored on a pick 6 in the 3Q to give the Stillers new life. SD took a 3 point lead with a FG at 3:00 4Q, but the Stillers marched down to the 1 foot line. With 5 seconds left in the game, Bell took a Wildcat snap, stuttered for eons of time, and then eked the ball over the GL for the game winning TD.
Grades:
QB: Vick got the start at QB. Hideous over-throw of a deep ball to AB, first series. Shit out pass to Wheaton, 3d & 5, 2Q. Threw a meaningless INT on Hail Mary pass, last play of 1H. Nearly INT’d on a 3D out pass, mid 3Q, but was dropped. Threw a good deep ball to Wheaton, and took a big hit, on the long TD bomb, 4Q. Hideously underthrown deep ball to Heyward Bey, late 4Q. Remained glued in the pocket all nite, until he took off on a 3d & 6, with less than a minute in the game, for a key 24-yard gainer. A very raggedy performance tonite. C-
RB:
Bell - Stutter Bell had a solid evening, with 111 yards on 21 rushes. Made a sh!t-licking block attempt in blitz protect, 3d series, and then added salt to the wound by getting flagged for a hold. Superb power run, mid 2Q. Followed that with a spectacular 25-yard run. Superb run of 32 yards, late 2Q. Had 89 yards rushing, 1H. He lived up to his name of Stutter Bell with a bizarre, quadruple stutter-step with only 5 seconds on the clock (at the snap) and barely eked the ball over for the game-winning TD. Had he not scored, there would have been no time left to call the final TO and boot the tying FG. A-
DeAngelo – Again mostly rotted the bench. Got a Wildcat handoff from Bell, first series, for 2 yards. Ran for 5 yards on the 2nd series and was immediately sent to the bench. On a muggy, 93 degree evening, had 5 rushes for 20 yards, and of course was never involved in the passing game.
Archer: Pee Pee Archer did nothing at RB. Thankfully he never touched the ball.
FB:
Will Johnson - . feeble blocking attempt that caused a 5-yard loss by Bell, mid 2Q. Very poor.
WR:
Brownie – had 2 grabs in the 1H and targeted just twice the entire 2H. 3 grabs for 45 yards.
Pinkie Wheaton – grabbed the long bomb, 4Q, and then ran to the EZ. Stunned he didn’t drop it. This was his lone grab of the game.
Archer: Did nothing, as usual.
Bryant - drug induced faggott was back from suspension, but did not dress due to some pansie-assed injury in which he incited “soreness”. Must be that time of month.
Heyward-Gay – climbed the ladder on 3d & 1 for a key grab, 1:00 4Q.
TE:
Miller – shit block on 3d & 4 running play, early 3Q. Got no push at all on the edge. Very poor. Clutch grab near the GL in the waning seconds, and took an illegal shot to the head, but held on. Had a dogshit block on the game-winning play, allowing his man to rabidly penetrate and force Bell much wider than he needed to be. B
Spaeth – Much to my chagrin, this sorry bastard dressed and played. Dropped a perfect pass early in the 4Q. F
OL:
Beacham - surprisingly wasn’t tooled and dominated.
Gilbert - FatAss Marcus moved like a sack of concrete on a pass play, 3Q, which forced a flush and sack of Vick. A shit play by a shit player. Gee, it’s a good thing GM Kevin Doltbert rushed out to extend this stiff. Even better, I suppose, that Dolbert overpaid him. C-
Foster – Continues to struggle in the power running game.
Cody Wallace – failed to pick up blitz, 2nd series. Poor.
DeCastro – Adequate. Stunned he wasn’t flagged for his weekly false start.
DL:
Cam Thomas – Played little. Waddled his fat ass to and fro.
McLendon - did very, very little. One of the season’s largest disappointments. C-
Heyward – forced a horrible quail pass by Rivers on a superb bullrush, late 2Q. Good stop of plunge, 10:00 3Q. B+
Tuitt – solid game amid a very active effort. He’s a gamer. B
Walton - saw some PT in the 4Q as Tuitt was gassed.
LB:
Timmons – Superb read ‘n and lick on screen play, 4:00 3Q. Whiffed on Gordon on long screen play, late 3Q. Had a key bat, 3rd down, at 3:00 4Q. Had the pass gotten to Allen, he may very well have scored.
Shaquier – did not dress, because (waaahhhh !) he has a sore shoulder on a hit that occurred like 4 weeks ago. Complete pansie. F-
Spence – got abused and tooled on a deep out for like 20 yards, 1Q, but a holding flag negated the gainer. Rare, good stop of plunge, 10:00 4Q. Credited with 8 solos, almost all of which were on slop stops after allowing WIDE open TEs to corral a pass.
Vinnie – decent dragdown of RB on draw play, early 2Q.
Moats – good 1-handed bring-down of Gordon on draw play, early 4Q.
Harrison – very meager impact. Smelled out a WR-type screen, late 2Q, for a 2 yard loss. Had 3 solos.
Jones – applied some pressure and forced a hasty INC early in the 2Q. Decent bulrush and nabbed Rivers for a sack, late 2Q. Poked the ball loose for a FF and rare turnover, early 3Q.
Dupree – did a WLR (Wide loop rush) against a rookie RT and got a sack, 3Q. To his credit, his loop rush was 4 times the speed of Big Jason GilDong, who used to loop waaaay around the Horn of Africa for a Dong Sack after the QB held the ball for 6 seconds. Committed a brainless offsides, 4Q.
DB
Will Allen – made a feeble, weak-assed arm-flail at Gates, 1st series, and whiffed miserably. Got tooled and abused by Gates for a TD on opening drive, with Wilbur – supposedly the God of safety coverage – not being within 19 feet of Gates on this simple 12 (TWELVE) yard TD pass. My God, if Allen had played any softer and any further OFF Gates, he’d have been in the 8th row of the end zone bleachers. Mercifully got injured (ankle) and left the game late in the 1Q. C
Mitchell – rare, decent tackle of Gordon on long screen play, late 3Q. No help all evening long in pass coverage. C+
Gay - Wasn’t picked on as much as I think SD could have.
Blake – flailed and whiffed on RAC plays at least 6 times during the game. Got a rare INT, and then SLOWED DOWN some 15 yards from the EZ and was lucky to get to the EZ without being stripped or tackled. Have no idea why this stiff was half-stepping and cruising. C
Golden – filled in for Will Allen.
Sharko Thomas – not permitted to play in the 1H on defense because, as you know, this secondary is just stacked with talent. Newsflash !! He was inserted in the 5 DB package, early 3Q. Immediately made an impact with a fumble recovery.
C. Allen - Queertez did not dress, due to a knee that has taken like 5 weeks to heal. Another complete pansie.
Boykin – Never allowed to play on defense tonite. Perhaps in 2017, he’ll be given a shot.
Cockrell – flagged for a foolish masking call, 1st series. Abused on a post for 32 yards by Floyd, 4Q. Very soft and poor. Read and delivered the lick on a quick WR screen, 5:20 4Q. Flagged for PIT, 4Q, on a 1st & 20 in which the pass was thrown all of 7 yards down the field.
Spec teams:
Jordan Cherry – punted ok. His first punt went all of 31 yards to the SD 16, which obviously was a pile of manure. Decent pooch punt, early 3Q.
Chris Boswell – had his Stiller debut as the PK. Booted his first NFL FG right thru the uprights for a 47-yard FG. Good distance on KOs. Nicely done. Already 4 times better than Scobee. A
Archer – Pee Pee returned a KO to the 23 early in the 4Q. Had 2 average KO returns.
R. Nix had a stellar string out of a wide punt return, 4Q, and then had a good tackle.
AB – did little on punt returns.
The spec teams were an outright fiasco this evening,, with a barrage of silly-assed penalties. Sharko Thomas committed a completely jack-assed FC interference in the 1Q, moving the SD SP from their own 10 to the 25. A brainless penalty. He was joined by Todman, with a blatant block to the back. Blake was flagged for a hold on a punt return, as was Heyward Bey.
OC:
2nd play of game, 25 yard pass to Miller….! Heyyyyyy, there’s a clever idea, especially after Miller was ignored the entire game last week. Of course, Miller was all but ignored until the game’s waning seconds.
Early in the 4Q, Haley finally called a boot left for Vick. Who was the primary receiver? Why, the stone-footed, skillet-handed TE with a broken hand, no less….!! How coy and clever ! Spaeth immediately dropped the pass. Brilliant, clever scheme by Haley.
Haley and his butt butties had 11 days to get Vick and this offense in synch for this game.....and this pig-slop was the best they can come up?? Bootlegs designed to go to the stone-footed, stone-handed TE with the broken hand??
SD booted a FG to take a 3 point lead, late 4Q. After a SD KO sailed thru the EZ, the offense took over at its own 20, with 2:38 left in the game. They ran a running play, which gained around 7 yards. Unbelievably, instead of having TWO PLAYS ALREADY called, these sorry fuks went back and HUDDLED, and then meandered to the LOS with all the speed of a glacier. They got off a line plunge, and then the 2MW occurred. TWO plays in 38 seconds, at THIS level of football?? A complete fuking disgrace.
That long bootleg TD bomb to Wheaton? That wasn’t Haley’s genius, it was BEN’s. Read about it here. Had Haley drawn that play up, it would have been a 6-yard pass to Will Johnson or Matthew Spaeth.
The game winning play was apparently drawn up by Haley on a sheet of toilet paper during a mid-week dump. He has a guard (DeAsstro) pulling, allowing loads of, you know, penetration. Worse, DeAsstro actually GETS IN THE WAY of Bell on this run. It’s on the SIX INCH line. Ya don’t need to go cute with a counter play there. You go man on man, helmet on helmet, and allow Bell to simply burrow or slice the 6 inches to paydirt, and if stopped, a TO is called for the tying FG. D+
DC:
Keith Assler had the luxury of facing a rusty Gates, who was making his first start after a 4 game suspension, combined with a ravaged SD WR corps that has only 2 NFL caliber WRs left. What does Buttt-ler do? Why, he leaves Gates totally uncovered on the first drive, allowing Gates to immediately find a rhythm and grab 3 passes, including a 12-yard TD pass in which the defender (Pisfuk Will Allen) sat OFF a good 19 feet from Gates.
Mid 4Q, 3d & 10, from PIT 27, and Keith Assler has NO ONE covering Gates, who gains 16 yards. Brilliantly clever !! A couple plays later, Assler thought he’d be clever again, and left Gates WIDE OPEN for an easy 11-yard TD pass.
Blake gets a pick 6 and gives the Stillers the lead and all the momentum. What does Assler do? He immediately goes soft, allowing SD to march down for a chippie FG to tie the game in the 4Q. C-
HC: Mike Dumblin was 0-3 on the West Coast and was rapidly heading toward 0-4 in this game. The rabid, middle-school style of time wasting late in the 4Q infuriated me, and I put this square on Dumblin, who has allowed this kind of juvenilish slop to go on far too long. 2:38 4Q, and this offense is only able to run 2 plays because they have to meander all the way back to the huddle, despite having eons of time to call 2 plays prior to and after the KO. Then Blake does some foolish, grade-school cruise, slowing down to half speed at the 15 yard line despite at least 5 tacklers with a good shot at either tackling him or stripping the ball, which he was holding like a loaf of bread. This school yard bullshit goes on, because Dumblin allows it to go on.
I was also infuriated that Dumblin failed to see the timekeeper allow the clock to RUN during and after a KO that sailed thru the EZ at 2:56 4Q. On a KO, the clock, per NFL rules, does not START UNTIL a receiving player grabs the ball and heads north. Here is the NFL.com play by play:
- 1. Pittsburgh Steelers at 02:56
- 2-J.Lambo kicks 65 yards from SD 35 to end zone, Touchback.
- 1-10-PIT 20 (2:38) (Shotgun) 26-L.Bell left guard to PIT 27 for 7 yards (27-J.Wilson).
- 2-3-PIT 27(2:06) (Shotgun) 26-L.Bell left end to PIT 31 for 4 yards (37-J.Addae, 97-J.Attaochu).
- Two-Minute Warning
In this case, the ball landed OOB and was never touched. As soon as the ball landed beyond the EZ, the clock actually started to RUN. Go re-watch it on your DVR. So, unbelievably, instead of starting this drive with 2:56 on the clock, they started with 2:38. All the while, Dumblin and his merry crew stood around with thumb up ass, completely unaware. Dumblin has, what, a small army of 19 coaches on his staff, and no one notices this?? Obviously, if Bell comes up 1 inch short on the last second run, the Stillers lose the game, in large part because of 18 seconds of lost time. This article confirms my observation. Note that Dumblin was quoted as saying, “Duh, uh, no, I wasn’t aware of that, no…” C-
Synopsis: Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. This was a stolen win, plain and simple. The team was grossly outplayed most of the evening. The offense looked like vomit for oh, about 58 minutes of the game. And this wasn’t the ’84 49ers that they beat tonite. This slop could easily lead to a careless loss at home next week to AZ.
(Still Mill and Stillers.com -- when it comes to the analysis of the Pittsburgh Stillers, no one else comes close….)
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