| July 31, 2004 | « Previous Story | HOME | Next Story » | Posted at 12:04 AM |
The day started out with the players working out and stretching out their legs. They ran back and forth doing some jogging and basically getting their bodies ready for practice. After the workout, the fun began.
The defense worked on one side of the field, while the offense worked on the other side. Drew Bledsoe and the other quarterbacks were throwing passes to the receivers. Moulds made a couple nice catches and so did Reed. Jonathan Smith drew a round of applause with one of his catches.
Following that drill, the offense and defense lined up 7-on-7. The offense worked on a lot of dumpoff passes and screens. They also did quite a few fake handoffs, including one where Travis Brown faked and then found Joe Burns downfield for 15 yards. The defense did pretty good forcing a few incomplete passes with Nate Clements forcing Eric Moulds to drop the ball on one play. They also did a great job covering the receivers downfield, except for one play where Bledsoe went back to pass and fired a nice long bomb to Eric Moulds for about 35 yards. Bledsoe also found McGahee in the middle of the field for 8 yards. JP Losman had a couple nice plays, including a bullet to Joe Burns for about 10 yard. However, he also had some overthrown balls and was almost intercepted by Dominique Stevenson. Stevenson knew he should've had that ball and did 10 pushups right in front of London Fletcher after he dropped the pass.
The last drill was the 11-on-11 drill and Drew Bledsoe took most of the snaps. Bledsoe had a beautiful fake to Travis Henry and was able to hit Mark Campbell right on the numbers. He also had a fake to McGahee and found Ryan Neufeld downfield for 15 yards. Bledsoe also found Bobby Shaw at the sideline, but London Fletcher knocked it right out of his hands. Troy Vincent later did the same thing with Sam Aiken and knocked the ball out of Aiken's hands on a pass from Travis Brown. Brown also had a pass tipped at the line of scrimmage by Pat Williams.
Here's a couple tidbits that I noticed today:
1. Mike Williams was working with the backups and stayed after practice for one on one work with Jim McNally. Marcus Price took the snaps at RT and Mike Pucillo at LG.
2. Sam Adams pulled a hamstring and was resting on the sidelines.
3. Pat Williams was impressive and did a good job in the middle, except for a couple offsides.
4. Drew Bledsoe looked pretty good. His passes were a little quicker than normal and you can tell he is trying to get rid of the ball much faster. Also, I did notice that he was not patting the ball as much. When he did, he looked like he was telling himself not to do that. Sam Wyche was working with him on the sidelines and also with the other Quarterbacks.
5. Travis Henry looked good. He looks like he bulked up a little bit and had some nice runs up the middle. Willis McGahee also looked pretty good. This should be fun to watch them both on the field this year.
6. JP Losman looked like he might have had some rookie jitters. He was off on a lot of passes in the 7-on-7 drill and overthrew or underthrew a few times. However, when he did go back to pass, he was able to get rid of the ball very fast and had a nice zip on his passes.
7. Jason Gildon was not starting in the 4-3 defense, but they had him in most other drills. He also worked with the defensive lineman more than the linebackers.
8. There were quite a few players that stayed behind to sign autographs today. JP Losman was a really nice guy and very down to Earth. He stayed and signed for about an hour after practice. Lee Evans also signed a lot, along with some other rookie. Nate Clements signed a few at the fence, Eric Moulds, Bobby Shaw, and even Travis signed at the camp entrance for some people, before they went into the dorms.
Well, that's about it. Overall, it was a good day for camp. The weather was very nice outside, a little hot, but there was a breeze. It looks like this is going to a pretty exciting summer at St. John Fisher. I'll be back tomorrow afternoon with the reports from the second day.
