| July 30, 2003 | « Previous Story | HOME | Next Story » | Posted at 11:09 PM |
Today was the second and final night practice. There were about 8,000 fans in attendance and they were all treated to a 15 minute autograph session afterwards. Todays practice included some 11 on 11, 7 on 7 and special teams. They also worked on the hail mary pass and the 2 minute drill at the end of the evening. The quarterbacks were terrible overall. Bledsoe was the only bright spot on this unit. He had a pretty good practice and even looked like the leader that he is supposed to be when he gathered all the players together to conference with them about their play. Alex Van Pelt had a pretty bad practice. He threw some good passes, but most of them looked flat, wobbly were off target. We might need to get another Quarterback in here now. Travis Brown looked even worse than before. The best way to describe his passes is...incomplete and overthrown. He worked with some of the starting receivers and couldn't even connect with them. Most of his passes were not even close to the receivers. I hope we see more out of him at the Ravens game, because in my opinion he should not get the backup job as of now.
The receivers didn't run the right routes and were lost in their route running at times. There were also many dropped balls. When they practiced the hail mary pass, the receivers didn't even go for the ball, they didn't even make a leap and most of those passes just fell to the ground. Drew Bledsoe threw the balls right on target and zipped them to the receivers, but for some reason, they just couldn't hold on. You could tell Bledsoe was upset, he started screaming at them and even called them all together to talk. Ruben Brown was pretty vocal too and so was Moulds. After this "talk," the players seemed to wake up and started catching balls again without the dropping.
The offensive line had a few false starts and some other penalties. They also struggled while they tried to stop the defensive line from coming through. The one good thing that came out of today was that Big Mike was back. He was a little rusty, but he still made the line much better than when he wasn't there.
This offensive line problems could also be due to the fact that the defense is starting to jell. The tackles are really stuffing the middle as the ends and linebackers can roam the field. Jeff Posey was all over the place and lined up at end more than once. He looked pretty good out there. Meanwhile, Spikes and Fletcher continued to dominate by helping shut down the run and even rushing the passer a few times. Nate Clements had some missed coverage and was on the sideline talking with Jerry Gray for a little bit. Coy Wire was back on the field and looked like he was in good shape. He had a few tackles and made some good hits. De'Mond Parker got drilled on one play so hard, that you can hear it from the stands. Jerton Evans provided that hit. Gregg Williams went up to him and told him to take it easy. But the hit was so loud, that you could "feel" it.
The running backs were one of the only bright spots today on the offense. Travis Henry sat out the practice to rest up. He was holding onto a football the whole time and I didn't see him drop it as some other players tried to get bat it out. Meanwhile, Olandis Gary, Sammy Morris, De'Mond Parker and Joe Burns took the reps. Gary looked pretty good and had some nice runs, one of them for 12 yards. He was also stuffed at the line a few times. Parker was okay, but he was also shut down in the middle. Burns was stuffed at the line of scrimmage by DT Justin Bannan and Angelo Crowell. Sammy Morris caught a bunch of passes and also had some good runs around the corner. He has good speed and really good hands. Morris could be the pass catching back for the season. Ken Simonton didn't have much work, except for special teams. He also dropped a punt.
Moorman continues to prove why he got the money. He was kicking everything over 45 yards and most of them averaged 50-52 yards. He did have one short punt for only 35 yards, when he was kicking from the goaline. As of right now, the players still lining back to return punts are Bobby Shaw, Nate Clements, Terrence McGee, Ken Simonton, Clarence Coleman and Antonio Brown. While Simonton muffed a punt, Brown had a nice return and was able to avoid the tackles.
Overall, this was one of the worst performances that I have seen so far. They were just sloppy! The players didn't seem like they wanted to play and looked off today. You could tell the players needed some work and maybe shouldn't have had the extra day off on Sunday. I'm honestly beginning to wonder if maybe Gregg Williams should re-institute the 2-a-days. If they play like this again, Gregg should definitely think about it. Who knows though? It could have been an off day or something.
Props to all the players for signing autographs for the fans, especially Travis Brown, Alex Van Pelt, Brian Moorman, Rian Lindell, Antoine Winfield, Ken Simonton, Josh Reed, Bobby Shaw, James Jett and Jeff Posey for staying later to keep signing.
Special thanks go out to #89 from The Stadium Wall for getting me tickets to this practice.
Well, that's about it for today's training camp report. I'll be back Wednesday, August 6th with the latest reports from camp.
Spikes when asked about his comments when he first arrived:
"I was dead serious," Spikes said, when reminded of his comments. "We've got 16 weeks and the preseason to prove it so by the time the dust settles at the end of the season, then everybody will be convinced." 8/7 AP