View topic - New Article: Stillers-49ers Postgame Analysis and Grades

[StillMill Profile]

Stillers-49ers Postgame Analysis and Grades has been posted by Still Mill at Stillers.com.

[ballhair Profile]

If Ben was healthy the outcome last night would probably be the same. We have all these so called superstars on our team and can't score any points or stop anyone from scoring. As a Steeler fan, did watching that game last night make anyone else want to puke? Our team is fucked up from the head coach down. Are Steeler fans that brainwashed not to see this?

[SteelPower Profile]

Team has plenty of talent just horrible coaching from Tomlin on down. Tomlin is not an elite coach in this league. He never seems to be any kind of leader in taking charge. When have you ever even seen him overrule any of his coaches?

[zapunto Profile]

That's a very winnable game with a healthy Ben. He was a shell of his former self throwing the ball deep -- ladies and gentleman, go outside and try to throw a football one-legged off your front foot -- easy to do for like 10-15 yards, but anything down the field and the ball sails, a la his second pick.

His second pick was blatant "Haha we know you're hurt" stuff. Niners rush three, drop eight. Not only does Ben have ten seconds to throw, he has more lanes than Bowlmor to scramble. Healthy Ben scrambles. Hurt Ben stands there and airmails Heath.

Tomlin's job last night (if you ask me) was to steal a win: a) encourage the offense to play conservatively and turnover-free and b) challenge LeBeau to force turnovers and attack the 49ers offense. Not only do the 49ers not have a deep threat once Ginn got hurt, it became clear that Alex Smith -- he of the 6.0 YPA last night -- is awesome at swing passes and crosses, but absolutely BLOWS at throwing the ball vertically. He completed exactly one pass down the field, and that was Farrior covering Vernon Davis (try not to laugh). LeBeau played no press coverage, no harassment, nothing. I don't remember Alice Smith getting sacked.

I'm surprised Still Mill didn't grade Walt Coleman. He made three brutal calls in my opinion -- Vernon Davis DID score on that throwback pass (that helped us), the foul of Timmons on the FG, and the sack-fumble on Big Ben should have at least been reviewed as a tuck rule -- not saying it was, but he did bring his arm forward, and was in the process of tucking it when he fumbled.

Do I think the Stillers constructed now is playing like a Super Bowl team? Not really. But they are 10-4, and all of their losses have been to double-digit win teams on the road, Torrey Smith be damned. They laid a stinker short-handedly tonight.

[Pommah Profile]

Not spiking the ball in the dwindling seconds of the 1H to position your kicker for a FG. After unneccessarily spiking the ball many other previous games. Cost us 3 points.

Not knowing the rules about "leaping" to block a field goal, as assholic as they may be. Cost us 4 points.

Keeping your injured franchise QB in the game when it is out of reach. Perhaps even starting him? At least, not having a game plan that acknowledges what he can and cannot do.

Your 8-year QB still does not throw the ball away in critical situations, causing loss of field position, and last night, a game-ending turnover.

This is bad coaching folks.

[Rushmore Profile]

Broken Record / Random Thoughts: The QB is gimped-up: Challenge the Defense, Special Teams, O-line and Running game to STEP IT UP. What's the game plan instead? Have BB throw it 45 times?!??! Resulting in 4 turnovers??!??! If Dennis Dixon and/or Charlie Batch got the start and turned it over 4 times, Steeler Nation would be screaming to cut them.

Even w/ a healthy BB, the offense has been ineffective of late i.e. KC / Cleveland / 49ers.

We fans turn our brains into pretzels figuring out playoff scenarios and everything actually fell into place this past weekend. The 1st seed is for the taking. What happend? The Stillers don't show up. Unbelievable.

There have been precious few times a Tomlin team has 'never been in the game', but, last night's team performance looked like they were not even prepared to play.

[pinpon Profile]

A truly crap performance by all three phases. Tomlin deserves an F! He is NOT a master motivator and is getting exposed more and more. Also, he needs to take over and call a TO at the end of the first half, instead of letting the clock mismanagement take place.
Playoffs, but probably Tebowed in Denver if we play like this.

[stillgrill Profile]

I was so thoroughly disgusted last nite @ the Stillers ineptitude, that I was almost thrown out of the bar I was in, due to foul language.

Where do I begin: the continued rookie-like mistakes of Ben? The meek defense playing a QB who may not be ranked in the Top 20 QB's in the league? An absolutely banged-up RB (Gore) who had eons of room to run? An absolute abject failure to get off the field on 3rd down, no sacks on Alice Smith, $50M-man Casper Timmons once again seen more in South Side bars than on the field? Friggin Woodley was useless.

Why the f@#ck didn't they go to the no-huddle sooner?

My gawd, I can go on for days. This loss may be more frustrating than the last Raven debacle, which was a TV-smasher.

[tourosteelersfan Profile]

Not scoring on the first drive was devastating. Ben R was at his strongest, the team was fired up, and the 49ers would have been in a (small) hole. Everyone knew Ben R would play and the 49ers did a good job preparing for a gimpy quarterback. The loss is frustrating because of the blown opportunity to secure the top seed but not really surprising; there is no way the Steelers could have run the ball successfully for much of the game.

Although I am suggesting that the loss should be taken in stride, it's hard not to be unimpressed with this year's team. First, why haven't we done more to improve the back-up quarterback situation? Batch is old and probably wouldn't have lasted the whole game. If Dixon isn't good enough to be the number two, then the Steelers should invest in someone else. Every year Ben R sustains substantial injuries and racks up Purple Heart after Purple Heart playing through them. This isn't a good plan for anybody. Second, this year's team has played just one great game against a strong team - the beat-down of the Patriots. I still can't figure out why this team plays virtually every game too close. There has been no margin of error since the very slow start, compounded by the second loss to the Ravens - which will haunt the Steelers all the way to Denver or San Diego, wherever the wild-card playoff game will be played. Finally, as others have written, this team is not built to win three on the road in the playoffs, especially with Ben likely to be less than 100 percent.

[m1k3 Profile]

SF offense:
187 yards passing
100 yards rushing

On a night where Ben turned the ball over 4 times - twice in the first half. The game was still 6-0 at halftime. ON THE ROAD.

And some of you want to crow about how LeBeau fucked this one up? Seriously?

I once read a comment on this site about the LeBeau hating becoming a religion around here. Whoever wrote that hit the nail on the head.

I'm not here to defend every decision the guy has ever made, but the defense didn't "savaged" last night, as Mill wrote. They played pretty fucking well, and the stats bear out that assertion.

[mountain65 Profile]

Once again the Stillers lay a turd in an important game. It started in the Super Bowl and it has continued this season. They had to treat this game as a playoff game and they didn't.

[JimPgh1 Profile]

SF offense:
187 yards passing
100 yards rushing

On a night where Ben turned the ball over 4 times - twice in the first half. The game was still 6-0 at halftime. ON THE ROAD.

And some of you want to crow about how LeBeau fucked this one up? Seriously?

I once read a comment on this site about the LeBeau hating becoming a religion around here. Whoever wrote that hit the nail on the head.

I'm not here to defend every decision the guy has ever made, but the defense didn't "savaged" last night, as Mill wrote. They played pretty fucking well, and the stats bear out that assertion.

The part I like best is when Mill writes stuff like "LeBeau let so&so catch a 20 yard pass" as if LeBeau was the guy (not)covering the receiver.

[steelwest Profile]

I have no idea what the defense was doing last night. The 49ers copied the Ravens dink and dunk approacha and spread things around. On defense, we merely need to cover the TE (like we did against NE) and stop the short passing (again like we did against NE). But instead, we went back to the "give them anything inside ten yards" and allow them to put their TE in a favorable match up on Farrior or another slow LB. We took a shaky QB and let him toss the ball short with impunity and get very comfortable. This scheme will not work against any decent team -- but we continue to employ it.

We need to employ an attacking scheme and see if a bad QB can beat us. I cannot take watching anymore.

[m1k3 Profile]

SF offense:
187 yards passing
100 yards rushing

On a night where Ben turned the ball over 4 times - twice in the first half. The game was still 6-0 at halftime. ON THE ROAD.

And some of you want to crow about how LeBeau fucked this one up? Seriously?

I once read a comment on this site about the LeBeau hating becoming a religion around here. Whoever wrote that hit the nail on the head.

I'm not here to defend every decision the guy has ever made, but the defense didn't "savaged" last night, as Mill wrote. They played pretty fucking well, and the stats bear out that assertion.

The part I like best is when Mill writes stuff like "LeBeau let so&so catch a 20 yard pass" as if LeBeau was the guy (not)covering the receiver.

I'm not trying to start (too much) shit. I'm just saying....

Isn't the point of your defense primarily to prevent the other team from scoring?

San Fran had 4 possessions that resulted in points last night. 2 of them came from turnovers that resulted in possessions which began in Steelers' territory:

Ben pick returned to Steelers' 45. (FG)
Ben fumble that was recovered on Steelers' 29. Defense held to a FG, but FG was negated after a Timmons penalty for leaping. SF scored a TD on the ensuing extra set of downs.

What more do you want from these guys?

[StillDodger Profile]

Not knowing the rules about "leaping" to block a field goal, as assholic as they may be. Cost us 4 points.

That was the absolute worst penalty call in an NFL game that I've ever seen.

And if you look at my posting history, I RARELY complain about penalty calls.

[PGHeaven Profile]

Not knowing the rules about "leaping" to block a field goal, as assholic as they may be. Cost us 4 points.

That was the absolute worst penalty call in an NFL game that I've ever seen.

And if you look at my posting history, I RARELY complain about penalty calls.

Still Dodger you are correct. His leap was completely legitimate. This was a flag that was thrown to change the outcome of the game

[steelwest Profile]

What do we want? I can answer that. Did you see the defensive performance by the 49ers? Turnovers. Sacks. Pressures. That is what we want. We also want a scheme that makes sense. You know, where you try to stop what the other team is likely to do and require them to beat you doing that which they are not good at. This is the general philosophy of Patriots football and is why folks regard Belechick as such a good coach. On Monday, we did about none of that. We allowed SF to do that which they can do -- dink and dunk, throw to TE, etc. We did not require them to do that which they do not do well -- like throw deep, have to beat press coverage with their back-up receivers, have to deal with extreme pressure, etc. We basically got lucky when they could not score a TD with first and goal from the 2 and on several other possessions. If you watch the individual third down plays, many of them are laughable. 3rd and nine but we play an eleven yard cushion so a WR simply needs to do a basic out cut and get the first. We allow plays that are basically the equivalent of run 5 yards and turn around.
Good teams with a problem offense that has a hurt QB do not play like that. They mkae plays. They press receivers. They force turnovers. They hit hard. The pressure the QB. Again, all the stuff we did not do. Remembers the Jets playoff game last year. We want to do more of that. Not more of this "feel free to have an automatic five to eight yards whenever you want." You cannot get TOs when the other teams QB is so comfortable he does not have to take chances.

[LenSherwood Profile]

So what are the Steelers looking at for the playoffs now? Three straight road games, beginning in the rarified air of Denver, then going to New England to see Brady ready to carve their asses up again with Big Ben shitting the bed in head to head competition. Ben will throw a fucking pick or miss a receiver or two like he usually does in games against elite quarterbacks where he has to match the other guy score for score because the defense is going to wilt.

[LenSherwood Profile]

It is probably better not to jerk yourself off into thinking this Steeler team is Super Bowl calibre anyway. They have maybe two quality wins if you count Tennessee as a good team. They have mostly struggled to even beat the Arizonas and Jacksonsvilles. Who have they blown out in this pastsy schedule they have? Indy? Won by three. If they got lucky and made it to the Big Show, Green Bay or New Orleans would be waiting to kick the living shit out of that defense. So maybe this Niner loss rid us of the pretense of being a Super Bowl contender and likely ended the reality of it since they have to win three road games.

[Steelers76 Profile]

Good analysis as usual, although the officiating in this game deserved to be ripped to shreds. It wasn't the reason The Steelers lost, but the refs inept bullshit calls only made the game harder than it already was.