Sunday, August 23, 2009

Reactions to a win, of sorts

Well, by preseason standards that was rather pleasant. All the usual caveats about the futility of reaching conclusions from preseason "games," but here are some reactions in no particular order:

- Both the starting line and the backups generally protected the quarterbacks well, despite facing one of the most dominant pass rushed in football.

- Jason Campbell’s stats were lousy, but remember two of the incompletes were on screens that got thrown away, and two more were on bombs. He showed very good pocket presence and avoided what little pressure got through.

- Colt Brennan’s goal line interception was just awful. He stared down his receiver and totally missed the lurking DB who jumped in front of the throw.

- Dominique Dorsey played pretty well on the whole. His runs all came against scrubs, but nonetheless he showed off some very nice cuts and speed. His punt return abilities looked exciting too, although he initially dropped one of them.

- On the first play of the game the defensive line utterly crushed the pocket, and they didn’t let up for the rest of the night. I am, of course, staying medium on this, but it is looking more and more likely that we have something special on defense.

- On a 2nd and 13 in the second quarter Kedric Golston drove his man 3 yards into the backfield, then shed him to make the play on the ballcarrier.

- Marcus Mason was unimpressive last week, but this time around looked more like the Mason from last preseason.

- Last year I though Colt Brennan showed that he was worth keeping around to develop, but I never totally swooned for him like many others. But this time I have to admit I developed an immediate crush on Chase Daniel. It’s a harmless infatuation and it will pass.

- Not sure what to make of the fake punt. The most obvious explanation is simply that Zorn needed to sustain the starting offense’s first drive. If we hadn’t gotten that first down, we wouldn’t be talking about the scoring drive and getting stuffed at the goal line.

- Speaking of getting stuffed, that was all on Sellers. He blew the lead block.

- The broadcast was once again terrible. On three different kicks the cameraman didn’t pan over fast enough to see where the ball was fielded. Once the starters came out, we spent half the time watching soft sideline interviews with the game action on a split screen too small to make out the players. The commentators did not feel the need to keep us apprised of who was coming in and out of the game, so I have no idea if D’Anthony Batiste can block at all. Which is really the only point of watching preseason games in the first place.

My God, do we really have two more of these things to sit through?

No comments:

Post a Comment