Stillers 20, Packers 10 ���. Nov 6, 2005 ����Game #8
Stillers-Packers Postgame Analysis and Grades
The Stillers traveled to Cheeseland to face the downtrodden Green Bay Jackers, and did everything they could to play down to the level of the woeful 1-6 Pack. Like last week -- except worse -- the Stillers slopped and slathered in absolutely hideous fashion, and only Green Bay's ineptitude and gracious giveaways allowed the Stillers to eke out a thoroughly uninspiring, shabby 20-10 win.
Grades:
QB: With Benji out, Batch got the start. The Batchelor finished with bizarre passing numbers, given the prolific nature of the modern NFL offense, going 9 for 16 for a whopping 65 yards. He threw one INT on a poor, hesitating crosser to Ward, and was hesitant on 4 or 5 other passes and also missed a couple open receivers. Because the Packers dominated TOP, and because the Stiller game plan was so juvenilish and conservative, it's really hard to gauge what Batch can or can't do if he has to start next week. B-.
RB: Parker got the start, but injured his ankle in the 3Q and didn't return. He finished with 5 rushes for 13 yards. Fortunately, The Duce was available for work, and he came through, big time, when the team desperately needed a spark. He averaged a healthy 5.1 yards per crack, toting the ball 15 times for 76 yards. With the Stillers sputtering and gasping for air, he had a nice 7-yard run on 2d & 6 for a 1st down late in the 3Q. He then had 3 consecutive runs to seal the short march for the big 4Q TD. Staley also had a remarkable, lunging 3Q catch for 9 yards on a pass that fully appeared to be headed to Ward. Haynes had 3 rushes for 6 yards. Doughboy Bettis did not dress. A-.
FB: Kreider had a big game after a few weeks of quietness. In a totally bizarre but true stat, he actually led the team in receiving, snaring 2 passes for 13 yards. The 2nd reception was big, which was a 4Q dumpoff in which he rumbled and punished Barnett and Harris at the end of the RAC. He had an outstanding block on Staley's TD run. A.
WR: Hines Ward went into this game, needing only 4 grabs to enter the Stillers record books. Instead, he caught 1 pass the entire game, good for 12 yards. He did have a superb, crushing crack-back block on a reverse in the 4Q. El further drove home the point that he isn't a starting-caliber WR, finishing with no catches. He did start the game off nicely, dashing for 43 yards on a reverse. Wilson snared a quick screen and got 10 yards on his only grab. B.
TE: Miller had 2 grabs for 11 yards. He had some good blocks. B.
OL: Facing a below-average GB front 7, the O-line played sloppily the entire game, except for some good runblocking in the 4Q. Marvel Smith was simply overmatched against KGB in pass pro, continually getting abused and slapped about by the Soviet FBI agent. KenDoll Simmons showed his true colors on a Parker run on the Stillers first play of the 3Q, getting whipped like a red-headed stepchild and causing a 2-yard loss. Hartings had a poor, low dribble-snap on 3d & 9 at the GB 24 on the last play of the 3Q, resulting in a 9-yard loss and pushing back the FG attempt on the next play to a 51-yard attempt. C.
DL: The line allowed lots of early yardage to backup scrub RB, Sam Gaydo. The pass pressure was, as usual, mostly nonexistent. Smith missed an easy sack of Favre on a naked boot on a 1Q 3d & 1, and Favre then completed a pass to Henderson for 25 yards. Smith did partially atone for his boner later in the drive, knifing in and tripping up Gaydo for a 1-yard loss on 3d & 1. Kimo had a late-game bat, but also whiffed on an easy sack of Larvae after a naked boot. Fat Casey was flagged for a very questionable holding call, but did pursue and haul down Gaydo on a toss sweep in the 4Q. Keisel provided some decent relief work. Facing such a mediocre, non-descript O-line with no rushing attack, it really pounded home how overly vanilla this D-line is. The Vanilla Curtain seems to be an apropos moniker for this crew. C.
LB: Another subpar, no-impact game from the very crew that the entire defense is built around to make big plays. Farrior had a couple ok -- just that, ok -- plays before succumbing to a knee injury in the 3Q. Foote padded his stats with a load of tackles, but most were of the "hang on for more help" variety. Joey Porter continued to do his best Jason GilDong imitation, standing around and doing little the entire game. Porter generated no pass rush whatsoever. The imbeciles at CBS tried to credit Porter with a pass defensed late in the 2Q, but this was simply a matter of the pass clanging off Lee's hand. Porter showed his overt softness in the 3Q, meeting Gaydo on a 2d & goal plunge and getting dragged -- because of lousy technique -- for 2 full yards by the 212-pound Gaydo. Porter was also flagged for an offsides. Overall, this was really as piss poor as it gets for a supposed "veteran defensive leader". Right now, Porter is all bark and no bite, except for the biting of the male anatomy that he's apparently been doing quite a bit of in his spare time. Clark Haggans was also as quiet as a church mouse, doing very little the entire game. Harrison saw some work and did little, aside from literally getting buried on the Gaydo TD run. Kriewaldt subbed for Farrior and did okay. It's hard to convey exactly how annoyed, pissed off, and disappointed I am in the play of this LB corps. D.
DB: Facing an offense that had no threat at RB and only 1 legitimate NFL starting-caliber WR, the secondary got shredded like provolone at an Italian pizzeria. The overall synchronization of this secondary is just pitiful, as on any given play, there is bound to be at least 1 breakdown, if not 2 or 3. Town was beaten badly on the bomb to Driver that Pola busted up and was wrongly charged with a PI penalty. Town was victimized on other occasions, though he did have a rare bataway on 3d & 9 out to Driver late in the 3Q. Town fully appears to be still hobbled with his injury, as his play is woefully timid and meek, as evidenced by his pussified stand-around on the RAC by Williams for 19 yards on 3d & 10 early in the 3Q. Carter was horrifically weak on the 3d & 7 completion to a wide open Driver in the 4Q, which was wiped out by an illegal shift penalty. Not to be outdone, on the ensuing 3d & 12, Ike got tooled by Chatman for an easy 18-yard completion. Ike was flagged for a totally bullshit PI penalty on a deep pass in the 3Q. Carter did have a big 4Q INT, but don't fawn over the guy as though he dashed in and plucked the ball out of the WR's hands. On this play, Favre delivered a perfect 3d & 5 pass to Driver, which would have easily netted a first down, but bounced off Driver's hands and popped high into the air, where Carter made the easy-as-pie catch of the falling balloon for a gift INT. McFadden made the play of the game, stripping Favre with a hit in the pocket, forcing a fumble and then having the presence of mind to pick off WR Don Lee, which enabled Pola to run 77 yards for the big TD. Pola flailed on multiple tackle attempts, but did recover 2 fumbles and returned 1 for the big TD. Overall, facing a horrible receiving corps, this was very uninspiring. Halfway through the season, you'd expect this deep, talented secondary to be improving, but sadly and puzzling enough, they're rabidly regressing. C-.
Spec teams: A very spotty afternoon. Morgan fumbled a KO return, but luckily Harrison recovered. Chubbi Okobi got totally whipped on the 51-yard FG attempt, which allowed Jenkins to get a paw on the FG and partially block it. The punt coverage in the 4Q nearly was bamboozled by the fake reverse, allowing a 36-yard return. Stuvaints, like a complete dumbass, committed a hold on the lone good PR by El, which cost the Stillers 34 yards in FP in the 4Q. Reed's KO were poor and either low liners or squibbers. D+.
OC: Wise Hunt went into this game, apparently with strict orders from Bilbo Cowher to dumb down the offense to grade-school proportions. The game plan was as imaginative as the course offerings from a local elementary school. How bad was it? The passing game yielded a whopping 3.5 yards per pass and the offense went 0-8 on 3D conversions. I'm already getting weary of the bullshit rationalization that "Batch is a backup" and "Batch is rusty". 3 years ago, in the playoffs, rusty backup Kelly Holcomb threw for 400 yards versus the Stillers. Last week, career backup Anthony Wright threw for nearly 300. With the NFL rules in effect today that give offenses every possible advantage, an NFL backup QB need not be treated as a pimply-faced 14-year old freshman hastily thrown into a high school varsity game. The 2nd series of the game said it all. 3rd & 7 at the GB 13, and WiseHunt calls the shitgun draw, which produced 6 yards and the foregone concluded FG attempt. This wasn't the '85 Bears the Stillers offense faced today, yet they played the entire game trembling in fear and as timid as the school nerd asking some broad out for his first date. If this offense is this scared and timid against woeful Green Gay, exactly what are they going to do come playoff time against a real opponent?? D.
DC: Another shameful, entirely pitiful defensive effort against an outmanned offense. You're facing an offense with a 5th string RB serving as the starter, along with a poor O-line and a joke of a receiving corps, yet you get shredded and picked apart time and time and time and time again. The Jackers were able to convert 8 of 17 3D conversions. They had an enormously long 17-play march in the 2Q, consuming 9:30 of clock after converting 3d & 1; 3d & 7 (negated by an illegal shift flag); 3d & 12; and 3d & 7. On the last 3d & 4, the conversion was there, but WR Don Lee allowed the ball to clang off his hand. Then, on the opening drive of the 2H, GB chewed another 7:30 of clock, converting 3d & 10; 3d & 10, and the 3d & goal at the 1 for a TD. What ails this defense? Just about everything. The pass rush from the front 7 is as feeble as what you'd expect from a convalescent home. (The big sack & strip of Larvae was the result of a dual blitz by Pola and McFaddden.) The LB corps stands around, catches blockers and ballcarriers, and forces little. The secondary is allowing receivers to roam WIDE open; is giving up gobs of RAC yardage; and is allowing easy cushions on 3d down plays. For as good as this defense played against the dangerous Cinci offense in week 5, they've been a big pile o' shit since then. D-.
HC: The fault for the ass-puckering game plan falls squarely on the shoulders, er the chin, of one Billy Cowher. Without his 2 favorite pacifiers, Big Jerome and Little Ben, Cowhard essentially told this team to tread water and hope for a win, and that's precisely how they played. They've got a solid backup QB -- a former NFL starter still fully in his prime -- and they puss out so badly with their gutless offensive gameplan that the now-terrified QB throws for a grand total of 65 yards. The defense, rather than turning up the heat and intensity, played grabass for the 2nd straight week, failing to make any plays on 3rd downs, allowing the clock to be chewed for eons of time, and making a totally inept offense look like the '67 Packers.
So "Charlie Batch is rusty"�..whose fault is that?? After all, hasn�t there been a few Stiller wins this season in which Ben Roth did nothing the entire 2H except hand the ball off to the RBs ?? Couldn't Batch have taken some snaps then? Plus, backup QBs all over the league come in stone cold off the bench and contribute a worthy, solid effort, so why does Cowhard treat his backup like a retarded simpleton that is merely on the team to accommodate some special ed mandate?? Said Cowhard after the game, "We did not have a conservative approach. That wasn't the thinking coming in." Bullshit!!! The gameplan was so conservative it made Rush Limbaugh look like the perfect running mate for Hillary The Hag Clinton! It's entirely obvious that Cowhard, trembling in fear without his security blankets, is setting his team up with the timid, asspuckering mindset that we've sent the past 2 games. It's the 4 Million Dollar Man's job to get his team fired up and fearlessly prepared to kick ass, regardless of what starters might be out or hobbled. Instead, as he done in the playoffs time and time and time again, Cowhard instills nothing but fear, timidity, meekness, and pussy football. An outright disgrace. F.
Synopsis: For those satisfied with abject mediocrity, this win was gleeful and glorious. For those who aspire to a bit higher standard, this game was a big, stinking pile o' shit. Right now, they're winning, but winning very ugly against the extreme bottom feeders of the NFL. Perhaps the hatred of the Cleve Browns next Sunday nite will snap this team out of its current funk, although you'd have figured that would have happened against the hated Ravens on MNF 2 weeks ago. Whatever it is, the Stillers need to ratchet up their intensity and focus, while at the same time arriving at a game with a gameplan above the JV level and the confidence to go out and kick ass regardless of who's playing QB or any other position.