A few weeks back I put up a post about some of the rising stars who had great spring camps. Before today gets rolling for me I've been formulating a post on what I observed were needed improvements coming out of spring camp as well.
You all know I'm not one to overly critcize, and probably nor should I be. I'm meerly an observer of these practices and not knowing the playbooks nor have never actually played - in some cases I'll readily admit that I could be wrong with these observations.
That said, here's the biggest areas I'd like to see in improvement:
1. It was no shock at all that Gregorak said this defense would be less agressive this year. In 2011 we had 3 corners that could usually be left on an island and they'd still blanket their coverage. In 2012, the Griz will not have that luxury. Sean Murray played well the whole camp but had issues with open-field tackles. Josh Dennard started fairly hot but would have ups and downs, Nate Harris (IMO) didn't start spring great but from the spring game on finished really well. Nguyen and Miles were hit and miss at times. Our corners need to find consistency through the summer and fall camp. Open-field tackling was a big issue for most all of them at any given point.
2. While this also improved over the course of the spring our LBs in pass coverage had issues with slot WRs. Granted that's a mis-match already I recall multiple passes (TDs even) thrown over a linebacker to a slot WR who was downfield. The linebacker in coverage had his back to the QB and in a few cases didn't even know the ball was coming. The last spring scrimmage gave hope here that this area is improving.
3. Outside of Josh Harris none of our DEs had much success getting to the QB on a regular basis when rushing the edge and matching up against the tackles. A good pass-rush needs a few good DEs to get after it, and we can't just continually run stunts (which were working - but obviously teams can adjust to prepare for that). We've got a lot of talent at DE in run support but that needs to translate into more pressures on the QB. I'll point out that this system may be the toughest way to gauge a pass-rush b/c the QB is getting rid of the ball so fast, what'd we have less than 10 allowed sacks last year? Maybe I'm over-reacting here.
4. Right guard is tenatively being held down by Jake Hendrickson but the running game wasn't as explosive as one would've hoped to have seen and so far that spot has not had a big stand-out. Hopefully Jake can continue to improve and lock that spot down because if not I've not seen much from the Hines brothers, we could roll Oiland to guard but then we'd need one of the Hines kids at center or possibly Brauer who the coaches probably think is a little undersized. Maybe Kistler back in at guard and Schmang at tackle? It's a codundrum for now because there's so many moving parts to this. However there's time, and its not like there's a deficiency of talent with our Oline.
5. Safeties still need to improve tackling. Fall camp will pit a very interesting brewing battle of Lebsock, Rominger, and Tully. Rominger had the best spring (that I observed) of all 4 safeties. Tully quite possibly was the most quiet. Lebsock took some ramping up but improved on a week by week basis. I saw way too many times though where our safeties would over-pursue running backs and wind up missing tackles while just swatting at WRs or RBs with an out-stretched arm. Burtnett and Gregorak (and even Delaney in the 2nd half of spring ball) were getting on a lot of the DBs for their tackling.
6. Punt returning was sloppy. Ellis Henderson pulled a hammy early so he was presumably hampered a bit and made errors fielding punts, Nguyen was probably the more consistent but still had some drops, Canada gets looks back there but probably puts the most on the ground. In the years of seeing Mariani and then Sambrano almost entirely cleanly field punts... I'm not seeing any one player standing out there.
7. I didn't see a lot of QB under center plays, I thought that was going to be worked on? Maybe it was on days I missed or I just didn't register it when they did it.
8. Not specifically a needed improvement but this spring seems marginally like a wasted one for Gerald Kemp. While I don't know how his injuries occured the rumor was that he was going to slot WR, but with JJ suspended for the first quarter of spring camp Kemp plays at QB, then JJ comes back and shortly after Kemp is hurt and I don't think played very much at WR if even did at all. A pure guess but I'd suspect he came out of camp frustrated with his injuries because he never got a chance to really do much on the field.
9. Call it a concern I guess but it's clear that this team badly needs Haas and Hardy back at TE. The two who will both be seniors this year are probably the only current viable pass-catching TEs right now. Pierson seems to have the blocking down well and gets open and runs routes well but needs to improve his catching, Richardson has too many issues with contested passes and not playing agressively enough
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None of this concerns me (in terms of worry for the 2012 season) as of yet, in fact thinking back the 2011 and 2008 teams in FALL camp were having more lapses than this 2012 spring ball team. It also makes more sense that there'd be more concerns on defense than offense just because of the graduation/loss of 9 starters from last years squad.
Additionally looking back on my post of what I'm expecting going into spring camp I've had a few other concerns also eased:
- Punting/kicking games- appear to be in good hands with Shaw and Lider
- Oiland at center, does well commanding the OL
- Tackle depth, Schmang has really stepped up
- Lack of "big play" WRs, Haynes had a monster spring, Saylor, Carver, and Warren all stepped up big time
- Consistent DT play (Bienemann, Takai, Tuliapupu - whew!) Maybe my biggest concern going into spring
There you have it!
arty: here's to this team continually getting better in the summer!
Enjoy your weekend Griz fans!
You all know I'm not one to overly critcize, and probably nor should I be. I'm meerly an observer of these practices and not knowing the playbooks nor have never actually played - in some cases I'll readily admit that I could be wrong with these observations.
That said, here's the biggest areas I'd like to see in improvement:
1. It was no shock at all that Gregorak said this defense would be less agressive this year. In 2011 we had 3 corners that could usually be left on an island and they'd still blanket their coverage. In 2012, the Griz will not have that luxury. Sean Murray played well the whole camp but had issues with open-field tackles. Josh Dennard started fairly hot but would have ups and downs, Nate Harris (IMO) didn't start spring great but from the spring game on finished really well. Nguyen and Miles were hit and miss at times. Our corners need to find consistency through the summer and fall camp. Open-field tackling was a big issue for most all of them at any given point.
2. While this also improved over the course of the spring our LBs in pass coverage had issues with slot WRs. Granted that's a mis-match already I recall multiple passes (TDs even) thrown over a linebacker to a slot WR who was downfield. The linebacker in coverage had his back to the QB and in a few cases didn't even know the ball was coming. The last spring scrimmage gave hope here that this area is improving.
3. Outside of Josh Harris none of our DEs had much success getting to the QB on a regular basis when rushing the edge and matching up against the tackles. A good pass-rush needs a few good DEs to get after it, and we can't just continually run stunts (which were working - but obviously teams can adjust to prepare for that). We've got a lot of talent at DE in run support but that needs to translate into more pressures on the QB. I'll point out that this system may be the toughest way to gauge a pass-rush b/c the QB is getting rid of the ball so fast, what'd we have less than 10 allowed sacks last year? Maybe I'm over-reacting here.
4. Right guard is tenatively being held down by Jake Hendrickson but the running game wasn't as explosive as one would've hoped to have seen and so far that spot has not had a big stand-out. Hopefully Jake can continue to improve and lock that spot down because if not I've not seen much from the Hines brothers, we could roll Oiland to guard but then we'd need one of the Hines kids at center or possibly Brauer who the coaches probably think is a little undersized. Maybe Kistler back in at guard and Schmang at tackle? It's a codundrum for now because there's so many moving parts to this. However there's time, and its not like there's a deficiency of talent with our Oline.
5. Safeties still need to improve tackling. Fall camp will pit a very interesting brewing battle of Lebsock, Rominger, and Tully. Rominger had the best spring (that I observed) of all 4 safeties. Tully quite possibly was the most quiet. Lebsock took some ramping up but improved on a week by week basis. I saw way too many times though where our safeties would over-pursue running backs and wind up missing tackles while just swatting at WRs or RBs with an out-stretched arm. Burtnett and Gregorak (and even Delaney in the 2nd half of spring ball) were getting on a lot of the DBs for their tackling.
6. Punt returning was sloppy. Ellis Henderson pulled a hammy early so he was presumably hampered a bit and made errors fielding punts, Nguyen was probably the more consistent but still had some drops, Canada gets looks back there but probably puts the most on the ground. In the years of seeing Mariani and then Sambrano almost entirely cleanly field punts... I'm not seeing any one player standing out there.
7. I didn't see a lot of QB under center plays, I thought that was going to be worked on? Maybe it was on days I missed or I just didn't register it when they did it.
8. Not specifically a needed improvement but this spring seems marginally like a wasted one for Gerald Kemp. While I don't know how his injuries occured the rumor was that he was going to slot WR, but with JJ suspended for the first quarter of spring camp Kemp plays at QB, then JJ comes back and shortly after Kemp is hurt and I don't think played very much at WR if even did at all. A pure guess but I'd suspect he came out of camp frustrated with his injuries because he never got a chance to really do much on the field.
9. Call it a concern I guess but it's clear that this team badly needs Haas and Hardy back at TE. The two who will both be seniors this year are probably the only current viable pass-catching TEs right now. Pierson seems to have the blocking down well and gets open and runs routes well but needs to improve his catching, Richardson has too many issues with contested passes and not playing agressively enough
------------
None of this concerns me (in terms of worry for the 2012 season) as of yet, in fact thinking back the 2011 and 2008 teams in FALL camp were having more lapses than this 2012 spring ball team. It also makes more sense that there'd be more concerns on defense than offense just because of the graduation/loss of 9 starters from last years squad.
Additionally looking back on my post of what I'm expecting going into spring camp I've had a few other concerns also eased:
- Punting/kicking games- appear to be in good hands with Shaw and Lider
- Oiland at center, does well commanding the OL
- Tackle depth, Schmang has really stepped up
- Lack of "big play" WRs, Haynes had a monster spring, Saylor, Carver, and Warren all stepped up big time
- Consistent DT play (Bienemann, Takai, Tuliapupu - whew!) Maybe my biggest concern going into spring
There you have it!
arty: here's to this team continually getting better in the summer!Enjoy your weekend Griz fans!
