Bungals 16, Stillers 10……. Nov 1, 2015…………Game # 8
Stillers-Bungals Postgame Analysis and Grades
The Stillers hosted the 6-0 Bungals in what was pretty much a must win game. Each team scored on its opening drive, with PIT up 7-3, so this one looked like a scoreboard burner. Instead, each club engaged in a bizarre punt-fest. In the end, Benji’s 2 horrific INTs, and Dumblin’s horrendous decision making, led to the Stiller defeat.
Grades:
QB:
Coming off injury during his career, Ben has almost always been lousy, and today was no different. He started the game like a house afire, marching the team down for a TD and going 5 of 6. He then got nicked up on the next drive, and ever the drama queen, started limping and wincing. From this point on, he played a timid, scared brand of football, and it showed in how poorly and ineffectively he played. Consecutive shitty deep balls, late 2Q, with both of them hanging far too high with both passes being sadly underthrown. The bomb that was INT’d in the 3Q was, again, underthrown. Had an eternity, and then some more time….and then threw a hideous INT along the sideline (on a pass to Wilbur Johnson, of all players) to give Cinci the ball at the PIT 45, with 5:34 remaining in the game. Not satisfied, on the next series he immediately threw a hideous, high lollipop on a deep crosser that was picked off. Ben had a chance to win the game on the final play, with the LOS at the Cinci 16 , but instead threw a Tomczakian high lob that was caught…..about 8 feet out of the EZ. From the 16 yard line….! You simply cannot throw this pass OOB ….you have to give a WR a chance at a play, and heck, perhaps draw a PI or illegal contact flag. A nice cherry topping to a shit sundae. Someone remind me of the last time Benji led this team to a late-game comeback. D-
RB:
Bell - Stutter Bell was having a solid game, but then got tackled by Burfict in the 2Q and suffered what appeared to be a nasty knee injury. Was carted off; did not return. Looked ugly. His season is done.
DeAngelo –rotted the bench as usual, but then Bell ripped a knee in the 2Q and Williams took over at RB. Took a 2d & 13 handoff from his own 9, and dashed 55 yards, late 3Q. Had 9 rushes for 71, and 4 grabs for 39. B+
Archer: Pee Pee Archer did nothing at RB. Thankfully he never touched the ball.
FB:
Will Johnson, Nix - some adequate blocking here and there.
WR:
Brownie – Was on fire early on, but then fell off the radar. Had grabs for 47, and the short TD in the 1Q. Dropped a crosser that hit him in the gut, 10:39 3Q. B
Pinkie Wheaton – as usual, did next to nothing. Had 1 grab, for (hold your laughter, please) 5 yards. But he’s just so fast and elusive…! D
Archer: Did nothing, as usual.
Bryant - nice adjustment and grab, 1st series. Failed to haul in a pass in the EZ, early 4Q. Had 4 grabs for 49.
Heyward-Gay – targeted a few times, but no grabs. C
TE:
Miller – after being literally ignored the past 4 weeks, he was finally used, and chipped in quite nicely. Took a big shot and held on (drawing a targeting flag), mid 3Q. A few plays later, made a superb pluck of a high seamer, good for 25 yards. Flagged for a hold on a running play, 1st play 4Q, and a false start in the 1Q. Had 10 grabs for 105. A-
Spaeth – played some, and wasted oxygen. Flagged for a hold on a running play, late 3Q. A few plays later, grabbed a short pass, and as ass-clumsy as drunken stooge, tripped over his own feet for a whopping 4 yard gain. C-
OL:
Villanueva - stupidly stopped blocking, 3d & 8 2Q, and allowed a sack to force the punt. He again stopped blocking, later in the 2Q, and this caused a hard hit on the QB. Overall, an adequate effort. B-
Gilbert - FatAss Marcus had his usual boners. After getting abused by the d-lineman, he was flagged for a hold, 1Q, which negate a 17 yard gain on a flea flicker. He was again called for holding, on a pass play early in the 4Q, but Cinci declined the flag to set up a punt. 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 – wiped out Ben’s clutch 3rd down scramble (which gained a 1st down) deep in Cinci territory, 3Q, with a fat-assed holding penalty. C-
Cody Wallace – Got totally abused and humiliated by his man, which forced the errant throw that was INT’d late in the game (Ben’s 3rd INT). C-
DeCastro – surprisingly didn’t commit a penalty or a huge boner.
DL:
Cam Thomas – Played little. Waddled his fat ass to and fro.
McLendon - Blistered Dalton on a sack, 3Q. A bit more lively and impactful than the past few dreadful weeks. B-
McCullers – saw a fair amount of PT. Chipped in some. B-
Heyward – good bulrush, and then smacked the QB’s arm to force an Inc pass, 1st series. Solid effort, although 1 solo isn’t enough. B-
Tuitt – did not dress, due to injury.
LB:
Timmons – whiffed on an early run, allowing an extra 8 yards. Batted away a pass from Eifert on 3rd down, 2Q. Bulled over Bernard and nipped the QB’s arm on the release, early 3Q.
Shaquier – meandered into no-man’s land, in a scrum, on Hill’s 15 yard run up the gut, late 1Q. Very poor. Blew up a Hill run right after Ben’s INT, 4Q. Lots of slop stops, littleimpact. B-
Spence – thankfully did not play on defense.
Moats – saw a fair amount of PT, and did little. C
Harrison – more impact than he’s had all season., although still not nearly enough. Good pursuit and haul down of Hill, early 3Q. Batted a pass back into Smalton’s face, 3Q. Had Dalton in his fingertip grasp on a key 3D, late 4Q, but Dalton slipped away and shoveled a short pass to Bernard, who gained 18 yards. 1 solo all game long doesn’t cut the mustard. C
Vinnie W. – thankfully played little or none at LB.
JarStiff Jones – Quiet as a mouse. Did very little. Helped bottle the late 3d down run. Way too much PT and way too little impact & production. C-
Dupree – astutely peeled off his rush and then attacked Dalton on a scramble, last play of 1Q. Very solid play. Then rotted the bench nearly the entire rest of the game.
DB
Will Allen – did not dress, due to injury.
Mitchell – Good, legal hit on Marv Jones to bust up a pass, 2Q. A few plays later, after Timmons had forced a punt, this human buttfuker got in Green’s face and was flagged for unsportsmanlike, thereby negating the punt and giving Cinci a 1st down. A stupid play by a stupid player. Was about 23 feet away as Green hauled in the 38-yard deep ball, 3Q. Stupidly decided to INT a clanged 3rd & 25 down deep ball in the 4Q, with the LOS on the Cinci 9-yard line. Golden added a block to the back penalty to make this a 67 yard change of FP. Had Bitchell simply batted this into the turf, Cinci has to punt from its own 9. Mitchell is never, ever in the same zip code as the ball when it arrives, and the 1 time he is, he brainlessly grabs the ball and the team loses a massive amount of field position. Had to depart the game for concussion protocol in the 4Q; unfortunately, it was after his brainless INT. C-
Gay - good play to force Hill OOB on a key 3d & 1, 3Q. Had an adequate game. B
Blake – got tooled continually by Green on short outs and hooks. Then, on a 3d & 2, 3Q, got abused deep by Green for a 38-yard play. Picked off a horrific thrown by Dalton in the EZ and raced 42 yards, 4Q. B
Golden – got the start in place of Wilbur Allen. Flagged for the brainless penalty after Bitchell’s stupid INT.
Sharko Thomas – Never, ever gets on the field, but got a small amount of PT due to Mitchell getting concussion protocol. Sliced in to blow up the 3d down run, 1:55 4Q. Won’t see the field again until, oh, 2017.
Boykin – Never permitted to play on D.
Cockrell – tooled by Green for 20 yards, 1st series. Allowed Eifert to out-wrestle him for the ball on a key 3d down catch, 4Q. Entirely too soft on AJ Green’s TD catch, late 4Q. It’s 3d & 2 on the NINE yard line, and this piss-ass is playing 12 yards off the LOS…! C
Spec teams:
Berry – Jordan The Cherry punted like vomit. Booted a dogshit 18-yard pooch punt, 4Q, which was FC at the Cinci 17. Very piss poor. Not satisfied, he followed that up with a low, creaky punt that went all of 32 yards, getting downed at the Cinci 24. Complete vomit. D-
Boswell – Was 1 for 1 on FGs. Decent KO’s. B+
Archer – Pee Pee, as usual, did jack dick. In the 1H, he returned 1 KO all the way…….to his 10 yard line. A little while later, apparently mad at himself, he really turned on the jets, taking that KO return all the way……to his own 16 yard line. Impressive!! He’s just so fast and electric….and elusive, too !! What a stud !! F
AB – did nothing in the punt return game.
Shoddy coverage on the re-punt, which Jones returned for 19 yards.
Vinnie W. had a good tackle of Tate on KO coverage, mid 3Q. Heyward had a huge FG block, late 3Q. Of course, Harrison then had to take off his helmet and taunt an opposing player, which drew a flag.
OC:
Superb opening march, of 12 plays, chewing up over 7 minutes and scoring a TD. After that, the offense crapped the bed the entire rest of the game. Mauluga got hurt, early 2Q, yet Haley was unable to capitalize. It was readily apparent that Ben was tentative to STEP INTO his throws, making downfield passing that much more arduous. What does Haley do to help with this? Why, NOTHING ! Until late in the game, he rarely called for underneath routes to the WRs.
Miller had the huge day, which reminds me - - brilliant of fuking Haley to literally write Miller OUT of the ENTIRE offense the past 4 weeks....! Just brilliant !!
I utterly despised the fake spike, 2-yard out pass to Bryant, from the Cinci 39, with only 17 secs left in the game. I don’t know if this was Ben ad-libbing, or if Haley called this bag of stupidity. They lost 5 seconds of clock on this play…..which could have been used for 1 additional stab from the 16-yard line. I also despised the playcall, whatever it may have been, on 3d & 18 from the Cinci 33 in the 4Q. Getting a 1D here was a bit of a pipe dream. ALL that should have been in Haley’s mind was adding a few yards -- just 3 or 4 -- to make the FG a bit more manageable. Instead, Haley AGAIN calls for a lengthy, DOWNFIELD play, and Ben gets sacked for a 2-yard loss. The 50-yard FG becomes a 52-yarder, and Dumblin eschews it for a punt. It’s inconceivable that AB, Miller, Williams, or Bryant couldn’t have snared a short pass and gained 3 yards here. C-
DC:
Keith Assler had lots of help from the Bungals today, as Cinci continually shot themselves in the foot. Eifert saved his bacon on the 1st drive, forcing a FG when he dropped a fairly routine pass that would have given Cinci the 1st down around the PIT 20. Buttler was also gifted numerous other freebie stops, such as 2 or 3 botched snaps by Cinci, and Cinci committing numerous penalties as well.
The softee coverage on Green enraged me, particularly on that 3d & 2 from the 9 yard line in the 4Q. To Assle’s credit, the tackling was much crisper than last week’s debacle, and the gang tackling was pretty good as well. C+
HC: Mike Dumblin oversaw another sloppy, shoddy effort. There were 14 penalties (bear in mind, not all were accepted), which shows the complete lack of discipline.
Never terribly bright, Dumblin eschewed a 52 yard FG attempt, 13:42 4Q, in a 10-6 ballgame in which the offense hadn’t done shit since early in the game. The weather was balmy and calm, with very little wind. Boswell has shown a strong leg, and booted a 51-yarder a couple weeks ago. Why in sam hell would you pass up the FG try here???? Utterly asinine.
Cinci, up by 3 and on the PIT 26 after Ben’s 3rd INT, ran a plunge at 2:44 4Q. As the play ended, there was 2:38 on the clock. Like a complete jackass, Dumblin -- who had 3 timeouts at his disposal -- refused to call a TO, which allowed 38 (THIRTY EIGHT) seconds to tick off before the 2MW hit. Dumblin apparently is the only human on the planet who doesn’t realize there is a 40-second playclock in the NFL. All macho, he defended this pile o’ shit decision after the game. The more Dumblin talks, the more he’s exposed as the fool he is. F
Synopsis: This was a must win game to keep pace in the division. At this point, Dumblin and his merry crew has pissed away any thoughts of a division title. Their only playoff chance is a wild card, and we all know how weak-assed and inept Dumblin’s teams have been on the road, especially come playoff time. At this point, pretty much all we can root for is the further exposure and further seat warming of one Michael Dumblin, who hopefully can be fired after the 2016 season.
Admin note: I’ll be at the Stiller game next week (I bought tickets long before today’s fiasco.) (I’ll also be at the Pitt game on Sat., as they square off against Notre Homo.) Thus, I probably won’t get a post-game report completed.
(Still Mill and Stillers.com -- when it comes to the analysis of the Pittsburgh Stillers, no one else comes close….)
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