reports & images from Le Scrimmage

12intheBox

Ooof. Not what one would call crisp today. Several offsides penalties, several dropped passes, several bad passes, a fumbled handoff – it just didn’t look really good for the offense.

Greg the Leg put on a show hitting a 64 yarder – so we’ve got that going for us.

I was able to see much more of the O Line play and they were pretty good – except the penalties.

Andrew Donnal looked overmatched against Brockers and Donald – but most guys are going to.

Greg Robinson was impressive. He did have one of the false starts – but he was pretty good against Quinn today.

Saw Havenstein pull on a WR screen and get way out in space on the hunt for a body to block – he had pretty good body control out there for such a bohemeth.

Rhainey ran with the 1s today – one of the false starts was on him.

Jamon Brown has impressed every time I have keyed on him – but there have been limited opportunities.

Maybe the best part of this scrimmage was the 1 on 1 work they did. They had linebackers rushing and backs / tight ends having to pick up the blitz.

The defense got the best of this drill for the most part but Pead had a few good moments (although he got eaten up by Dunbar on one). Akeem Ayers proved difficult for anyone to block in this drill. One thing I liked was when the drill was over – Ogletree and Pead each wanted one more shot at each other – I gave the win to Pead on that rep.

On the otherwise, it was WR v DB one on one

I was watching more of the pass rush at this time, but I did see Bailey beat Jenkins once – although JJ kept him in front of him. That was one of the few times I saw Jenkins let anyone catch anything around him. He was good again today.

The QB play was meh. I know we just extended Foles so I should put the rose colored glasses on – but he wasn’t at his best today.

The offense didn’t push the ball up the field much. For some reason, Britt didn’t dress today. He was missed.

Even Mannion didn’t look so hot today – he is only getting reps with the 3s which is frustrating me – but I’m a dude in the bleachers and coach is a millionaire because of what he knows about football.

Even the defense was jumping offsides in the drills. Maybe everyone was a bit antsy. After the 4th or 5th drop – the boo birds showed up. I can’t say it any other way – it really wasn’t a pretty performance.

I’d like to say it was just the defense dominating but that isn’t what it looked like. It was drops and mental break downs.

Barron was back and looked good today. Also, opening up the 11 on 11 Christian Bryant was running with the 1s in the slot – which is encouraging.

I finally got a good look at Battle and the guy aces the eyeball test. Big ol bubble butt on him and tree trunk arms. The size of a lot of these guys is just amazing – most of all Greg Robinson. Up close, he is a mountain.

Bayer and Cunningham had decent days catching the ball – they finally spread out Smelleys targets a bit, I guess.

Cook is still target #1 and target #2. Bailey got more looks today than I had seen. Even Tavon got in on it – and had a few decent catches. The outside doesn’t seem like his best fit.

I took in the scrimmage w Coach O, @CodeMonkey and his son, and @RamzFanz – the dream team of watching practice.

So this will be my last report – I was only in town for the week – and even though today was a bit sobering, I was lucky to have good weather and some good dudes to watch the action with. Now I go back to being an out of towner who relies on the eyes of those of you who go and watch and report back to the rest of us. Please guys, keep it going.

Moostache

my thoughts from the east stands:

Gurley is bigger than I thought. He was running 1/2 speed 40’s along the sidelines in front of me for a lot of the first 1/2 of practice. No hitch in the giddy-up from what I could see, but he really had the look in his eye of a caged tiger…looked to me like if it were left up to him he’d be in with the 1’s already.

watched Gurley like a hawk most of the time he was out on the sideline. I was VERY skeptical of the pick in the first round, especially at #10 coming off the ACL. He did not have a limp and he was intentionally not making hard cuts. His body language is that of a guy who wants to go 100% and is being handled to prevent it from happening too soon. Like I said, his size is impressive up close. Saw him standing next to Mason and he looked HUGE! Also saw him talking with Ogletree and he looked nearly as big as Alec… Its encouraging to see him in pads and out there, but I just want him 100% before he gets “live”…

Foles was inconsistent and failed to “wow” me. He had a tipped ball picked by JJ and while that may not have been his fault, the entire play looked bad. HOWEVER…he better stay healthy or this season is a loss…Keenum is too small, Davis lacks any real arm strength (his throws had no ‘zip’ and he seemed to really labor to drive the ball to the sidelines and deeper than 20 yards from my vantage point)…Mannion is big and has a big arm too, but he is no where close to ready to be on an NFL field.

Saying the offense was “not sharp” is too kind…they pretty much stank. I remember one throw to the corner that was a very nice play by Mannion that stood out, but there was a lot of muddled performances too…the false starts, the general lack of any push in the middle…Donald looked like a beast in a few drills and flashed into the backfield a few others in 11-on-11, Quinn in sweatpants but participating was a little strange too.

Tavon Austin? Paging Mr. Tavon Austin? I have lost faith in him developing. There was a play that saw Bailey in the Y and Austin in the Z and I immediately said “Smurfs Right”….sadly, those two do not play like the ’82 Redskins’ Smurfs…to be fair, it is not just Austin that I was disappointed in… Joiner also simply looks too small. He is not a presence on the field in the same way some of the other CBs.

Quick dropped one that raised my eyebrows and flashed me back to his rookie camp…the added yellow cap on him kept drawing my eye to him in 7-on-7’s and 11-on-11’s and he was Just A Guy for much of the day.

The defense is either playing other worldly and destroying the center of the O-line, or our center situation is critical. I am very much worried about the performance today, but I don’t have a good frame of reference to compare it to…

I also think Pead makes the squad, in fact, I could see Bennie Cunningham ending up in a fight for his roster spot. A trio of Gurley, Mason and Pead as primary HBs would not make me sad at all. Bennie is a load though, he really looks like he should be a power back…maybe the team keeps 5 RBs again and Pead, Cunningham and Reynolds are primarily ST players again? There won’t be too many carries in the second half of the season as I could easily see the Rams running 15-18 per game for both Gurley and Mason.

GZ from 64 in live drill was good, but he missed from 61 and 64 in single drills…he still has an incredible leg and the sound of him kicking a ball is a little like being at a ballgame and hearing someone really lay into a hanging curve…the “POP” when he hits that ball is amazing. (Side note, at today’s event the balls he was kicking were running up onto the hill behind the south endzone and a group of kids assembled to try to catch the kicks that cleared the fence…my son was among them and he actually managed to catch one of Zeurlein’s kicks from 40…big thrill for the boy tonight!).

Overall, about what I expected…I HOPED the offense would look batter, but without Mason or Gurley taking real reps today and with the center position remaining a huge concern, I am not avoiding tall buildings or bridges about it…yet. The D looks like the are not just a little ahead of the O, they look like pros playing against collegians to my eyes.

Since today was not really about establishing and executing an offensive game plan, they get a pass, but I am really going to be paying close attention to the O the rest of camp and pre-season.

McLeod was playing deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep….about 20-25 yards off the line in a single high / center field role. The offense never went down the field and they weren’t really hitting too hard, so he had what I would consider a boring practice overall…nothing bad, but not many chances to do much either. Barron had one play that I saw that raised an eyebrow on his coverage, but he also had another that was in run support that also raised an eyebrow…he is what we thought he was…Not a spectacular coverage safety, but more than adequate as a “box safety” playing run support in Nickel formations as a 3rd safety. Bryant made one play in coverage that was pretty good and had me reaching for my roster to make sure who it was…other than that, he was largely invisible during the rest of the evening.