I caught a little over an hour of practice today inbetween a few rain storms. My tweets can give you the play by play stuff so I'll spare a repeat there. It was no-pads again today so once again everyone looks better except the O-line.
There was some jumbling of starters and 2nd string today and I bet we see this continued rotation for a while now. The two bigger moves today I noticed were Coyle in for Stu with the 1s, and Logan Hines in for Jake Hendrickson at starting guard.
I missed a lot of practice so by no means are these thoughts complete of what happened but here's a few main points that stood out to me today.
The positive stuff:
- Josh Dennard seems so far to be adapting well to corner, another pick today. He'll be a guy I'll keep a close eye on as the pads come on and the game gets more physical. He's not been beat much by any WR or QB, his two picks I've seen have been against Kemp and Montana.
- Sean Haynes has had a monster two first days, IMO. My concerns of an "explosive" WR replacement to Jabin may be subsiding... it is WAY too early to say this decisevly but Haynes is playing with great confidence right now and making big plays, he has that same fast burst that Jabin has. Another TD after getting away from his cover on a short pass today.
- Hermey is right back where he left off, if what saw on twitter was correct he's under the weather but that's not stopped him from a pick today and recognizing and stopping multiple screen/short passes for little to no gain.
- Sean Murray is playing like a #1 corner, confident, cocky, physical (even without pads on), a couple of nice PBU's today.
- JP Kanongata'a in these first two days has been all over the place and has appeared to improve in his pass coverage. He's becoming a complete linebacker and with him and Tripp on the field... the edges aren't safe anymore... at all.
- Ty Timmer caught my eye today, multiple would-be touch sacks blitzing up the gut. Of all the mike-backers Ty's had the best success getting to the QB. If that continues he could make a compelling 3rd down 3-4 blitzing backer or change of pace backer. Hopefully when his knee gets tested in higher contact situations he can keep it up.
- Mitch Saylor is a matchup nightmare on the sidelines, he's mainly drawn Miles or Harris in cover and he's getting around/past these guys in press coverage in a hurry. He's also been doing really well finding gaps in the cover-2 zones as well.
- Guess the three running backs having the biggest gains/runs so far in these first two days? Yep... Jacob Elder, Caleb Walden, and Brett Kirschner... lol. This stable of running backs could become the best this team's ever had. Kirsch had multiple big runs and Walden had a would-be TD run that had DC Gregorak cursing out his 2nd string LBs for not chasing him down.
- Pretty good punting day for Shaw again, I think he's dialed in to be our punter, hopefully he doesn't pull a Wren-like showing when it turns into live action. He blasted one punt over Canada's head and with the roll it was a 73 yard punt (I posted 83 originally but that was an error).
- Alex Bienemann could become the next Alan Saenz, lets see if he keeps this up but right now he's killing the middle of the Oline. For a bigger DT he's very quick out of his stance and is firing right through the line.
The challenges:
- WAY too many drops by the WRs. Cam Warren has been making some nice plays in the slot to get open but today had Bo Tully slide past him on a deep pass but the ball hit him square in the hands and fell to the turf. Kemp had a pair of picks today and both were batted in the air by his would-be WRs and picked by the D.
- Nick Holt who appears to be getting looks at Will-backer was getting chewed out a lot today for not playing zone coverage properly. Multiple times he released covering the slot WR to cover the check-down which left the slot wide open and easy completions. (Coach Ty caught it of course and wasn't too happy).
- More drops and mis-handled catches in the punt return game. Henderson slipped and hurt his hammy and wound up watching the rest of practice, so Canada, Nguyen, and Roberts were fielding the punts. Petey is pretty solid, just a few lapses, Canada and Roberts are mis-reading a lot of punts.
- Today the tackles had big issues with the DEs. By no means am I worried because the Oline I believe is at the biggest disadvantage without pads. Kistler and Poole had issues today with mutliple DEs and blitzing LBs. Hopefully now that they can contact a little more and that'll slow that pass rush a bit.
- No QB is playing consistently right now. Kemp is doing the best finding open WRs and looking off coverage but he's been hesitant in some of his throws and has been sailing the sideline passes. Montana is also having issues with accuracy on the sideline and taking too many gambles. SSH is playing well in the shorter game and was running the zone read well today, the playcalling seems to be keeping a leash on him, he's not throwing downfield much. McKinney goes from hot to cold in a hurry, he's had some very nice throws today that were dropped, he's tended to throw a lot of his shorter passes pretty low though.
- Like I said I didn't see all of the practice but again today they worked like mad on punting but I didn't see a single fieldgoal attempt. Considering we've got a new kicker this year (Lider and the new #83) shouldn't the team be practicing this a little bit?
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Ok that's my early thoughts, I don't think I've said it enough but no pads only tells a partial story, lets see how the team looks on Friday (I'm going to miss the Saturday scrimmage as I help out with the poker tourney).
There was some jumbling of starters and 2nd string today and I bet we see this continued rotation for a while now. The two bigger moves today I noticed were Coyle in for Stu with the 1s, and Logan Hines in for Jake Hendrickson at starting guard.
I missed a lot of practice so by no means are these thoughts complete of what happened but here's a few main points that stood out to me today.
The positive stuff:
- Josh Dennard seems so far to be adapting well to corner, another pick today. He'll be a guy I'll keep a close eye on as the pads come on and the game gets more physical. He's not been beat much by any WR or QB, his two picks I've seen have been against Kemp and Montana.
- Sean Haynes has had a monster two first days, IMO. My concerns of an "explosive" WR replacement to Jabin may be subsiding... it is WAY too early to say this decisevly but Haynes is playing with great confidence right now and making big plays, he has that same fast burst that Jabin has. Another TD after getting away from his cover on a short pass today.
- Hermey is right back where he left off, if what saw on twitter was correct he's under the weather but that's not stopped him from a pick today and recognizing and stopping multiple screen/short passes for little to no gain.
- Sean Murray is playing like a #1 corner, confident, cocky, physical (even without pads on), a couple of nice PBU's today.
- JP Kanongata'a in these first two days has been all over the place and has appeared to improve in his pass coverage. He's becoming a complete linebacker and with him and Tripp on the field... the edges aren't safe anymore... at all.
- Ty Timmer caught my eye today, multiple would-be touch sacks blitzing up the gut. Of all the mike-backers Ty's had the best success getting to the QB. If that continues he could make a compelling 3rd down 3-4 blitzing backer or change of pace backer. Hopefully when his knee gets tested in higher contact situations he can keep it up.
- Mitch Saylor is a matchup nightmare on the sidelines, he's mainly drawn Miles or Harris in cover and he's getting around/past these guys in press coverage in a hurry. He's also been doing really well finding gaps in the cover-2 zones as well.
- Guess the three running backs having the biggest gains/runs so far in these first two days? Yep... Jacob Elder, Caleb Walden, and Brett Kirschner... lol. This stable of running backs could become the best this team's ever had. Kirsch had multiple big runs and Walden had a would-be TD run that had DC Gregorak cursing out his 2nd string LBs for not chasing him down.
- Pretty good punting day for Shaw again, I think he's dialed in to be our punter, hopefully he doesn't pull a Wren-like showing when it turns into live action. He blasted one punt over Canada's head and with the roll it was a 73 yard punt (I posted 83 originally but that was an error).
- Alex Bienemann could become the next Alan Saenz, lets see if he keeps this up but right now he's killing the middle of the Oline. For a bigger DT he's very quick out of his stance and is firing right through the line.
The challenges:
- WAY too many drops by the WRs. Cam Warren has been making some nice plays in the slot to get open but today had Bo Tully slide past him on a deep pass but the ball hit him square in the hands and fell to the turf. Kemp had a pair of picks today and both were batted in the air by his would-be WRs and picked by the D.
- Nick Holt who appears to be getting looks at Will-backer was getting chewed out a lot today for not playing zone coverage properly. Multiple times he released covering the slot WR to cover the check-down which left the slot wide open and easy completions. (Coach Ty caught it of course and wasn't too happy).
- More drops and mis-handled catches in the punt return game. Henderson slipped and hurt his hammy and wound up watching the rest of practice, so Canada, Nguyen, and Roberts were fielding the punts. Petey is pretty solid, just a few lapses, Canada and Roberts are mis-reading a lot of punts.
- Today the tackles had big issues with the DEs. By no means am I worried because the Oline I believe is at the biggest disadvantage without pads. Kistler and Poole had issues today with mutliple DEs and blitzing LBs. Hopefully now that they can contact a little more and that'll slow that pass rush a bit.
- No QB is playing consistently right now. Kemp is doing the best finding open WRs and looking off coverage but he's been hesitant in some of his throws and has been sailing the sideline passes. Montana is also having issues with accuracy on the sideline and taking too many gambles. SSH is playing well in the shorter game and was running the zone read well today, the playcalling seems to be keeping a leash on him, he's not throwing downfield much. McKinney goes from hot to cold in a hurry, he's had some very nice throws today that were dropped, he's tended to throw a lot of his shorter passes pretty low though.
- Like I said I didn't see all of the practice but again today they worked like mad on punting but I didn't see a single fieldgoal attempt. Considering we've got a new kicker this year (Lider and the new #83) shouldn't the team be practicing this a little bit?
--------
Ok that's my early thoughts, I don't think I've said it enough but no pads only tells a partial story, lets see how the team looks on Friday (I'm going to miss the Saturday scrimmage as I help out with the poker tourney).
