Monday, October 17, 2005
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
No one expected Tommy Maddox to hang himself in the interview room after giving away a football game to the goofy Jacksonville Jaguars yesterday, at least not literally -- he'd have fumbled the rope -- but not figuratively either; he's too smart for that.
But if you thought Maddox was miserable in the chaotic overtime, when he fumbled away the snap on the Steelers' first possession and flipped a game-ending interception to the streaking Rashean Mathis on the second, you should have seen the overtime's overtime.
Let's just say that this many wrong answers have not been given in one sitting since the boys from Animal House took the anthropology midterm.
Twenty minutes after a game in which he had personally turned the ball over four times (and Jacksonville linebacker Mike Peterson dropped a fifth), converted 1 of 12 third-down situations, thrown into quadruple coverage at least twice, and somehow put together the laughably substandard passer rating of 30.1 (I thought you got 30 just for showing up until Maddox' first-half rating came in at 29.2), Maddox emerged from some alternative reality and rounded up everybody but himself into an eerie Village of the Blamed.
Without naming every last phantom culprit in a 23-17 loss, the veteran quarterback essentially fingered by clear implication or indirect reference Quincy Morgan, Jeff Hartings, Dan Kreider, the wind and several other elements I just couldn't write down fast enough, possibly the Miers nomination, the spike in consumer prices, static cling and unconscionable roaming charges.
And, whether he realizes it or not, to his inevitable and profound regret, he lashed the fans who booed him.
"I was disappointed in that," he said. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't. I think that sometimes it is to be expected, [but] when you have a track record in a city, like I do here, I was disappointed. I got booed for throwing the ball away a few times when I thought I was making smart plays. It's almost kind of comical."
Bill Cowher, I'm guessing, didn't see a lot of humor in it. Cowher admitted that at some point he considered shoving Tommy Gun back in his holster, but, upon further review, said, "I don't think it would serve any purpose to reflect on that. I didn't, and that's the bottom line."
Asked if he got any sense, at any point, that Cowher's confidence in him was cooling, Maddox said, "Uh ... no. I was seeing the field really well. If somebody else's ball would have done better in the wind, that's fine."
No one had a right to expect Tommy Maddox to be Ben Roethlisberger yesterday. Maddox hadn't started a game since an inconsequential January afternoon in Buffalo. He had just recovered from an injured calf muscle and didn't know for certain he would start until almost the weekend, when it was finally clear that Roethlisberger could not.
But this is the larger truth: Had this ridiculous performance instead been authored by Roethlisberger, the 23-year-old would have walked into post-mortem and blamed no one but himself, just as he did repeatedly in the doomed postseason last year. That's what you should be able to expect from the 34-year-old Maddox, and that is the diametric opposite of the nonsense he offered yesterday.
Of his throw on the interception that ended the game, he said, "He [Mathis] did a good job of jumping the route, but I thought even if he jumped it, Quincy would be able to get in front of him. I felt pretty good about it when I let it go."
Yeah, it was Quincy's fault.
Morgan could not have prevented that interception if he were 8 feel tall and double jointed.
Of his fumble on the snap at the Jaguars' 27, he said, "I didn't get it clean and I don't know for what reason. When I was turning around I thought I was about to control it and I kind of bumped into [fullback] Danny [Kreider] and lost it."
Yeah, it was either center Jeff Hartings' fault for a shaggy exchange, or it was Kreider's fault for, you know, being there.
What tripe.
And of the wind, he said -- aw never mind; I'm not letting him hiss into the wind, too.
It's not likely, but Maddox might have gotten away with all of this had he not taken on the audience. Once he did that, he put himself in the darkest corner of the modern fan-player dynamic, that which is occupied by a player who doesn't perform, doesn't accept responsibility for it, and comes to the faulty conclusion that his multi-million dollar contract makes him impenetrable to criticism from the people who make it all possible.
"It didn't have any effect on the game," Maddox said finally, "and it won't have any effect on how I play the next time I get out there."
The hell it won't.
(Gene Collier can be reached at gcollier@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1283.)
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