At least they threw downfield!

Remember, last week the line looked terrible. Pass protection was awful and everyone was saying how bad our line might really be.

Guess what? When they prepared to protect against a blitzing team that could actually put thier hands on our QB, they did great.

Now, Gibbs has no reason to show his best passing plays in preseason. He will be showing watered down versions of the ones that need the most work. No need to practice hitting Cooley in the flat. We know Ramsey can do that. That said, Ramsey missed 4 passes. The ones short of first downs are also attributable to the guys running the routes. That is something that can be fixd through coaching.

Penalties were few (except with the third stringers on the goal line) so that is another positive. Also, when the panthers did blitz, Ramsey checked off to the correct receiver and beat it every time.

Lets see what we fix from this game in the next one.

We really can't get to worked up about that Ravens game, I saw highlights tonight and they are bringing everything but the kitchen sink on every play, team's right now are looking at personel and fine tuning, the Ravens are playing defense like it's the super bowl and they still lost. Thats there defense, the 46 which requires alot of blitz. They are just playing there base defense. As were the Skins, in fact I saw them blitz the corners a few times even do the double corner blitz, and they still lost. I think they were just seeing what personnel can do what, therefore vanilla is out the door.

The screens looked good. AND they worked.

This is something they did not do last year and with Portis, these could really help to exploit blitzing defenses. Good job to Musgrave to help implement this and the shotgun. Yes before they would never run the screens but at least 3 in the game must be a record for Joe Gibbs. They worked and ran great.

ramsey and brunell looked pretty comfortable using the shotgun. the offensive line (1st & 2nd string) looked really good.

the defense didn't look as good as last year but i didn't expect them to, they were missing way to many starters. taylor is really in the dog house, he didn't play with the first team but was forced to play with the second and he was on the field for a long time.

The shotgun look great I thought. No bad snaps.

I noticed bits and pieces so we still have much to improve on. We have three more pre-season games to establish some form of consistency in combining all three aspects of the game, offence, defence, special teams. We really didn't show well in any particular area last night. Still a bit concerned about the downfield passing game but it's early yet and we still have time. We "must" establish consistency in drives that produce points as opposed to a few plays and punt.

Nice to hear about Dockery throwing Jenkins around a bit.

How often did they use the shotgun?

Holy cow! I didn't get a chance to see the game being in Connecticut, but Didn't we just put up 3 points in the first half off a blocked field goal? What are we talking about here??? It is great that the line played better but we need to score points! I mean normally I am very optomistic, but after the offseason we had and getting smaller and faster wideouts we were a little anemic in this game. We are going to have to make some HUGE strides to be good this year. I understand it is the first game, but we had our starters in all of the first half and we could not score on their second string? Did anyone watch the game I saw the highlights of???

As bad as Ramsey looked, I was happy to see the 3 WR set and the screens were great. The O-line did do a great job of giving Ramsey time, but for some reason he still had "happy feet" in the pocket. He never planted his feet when he did throw, and before he even got pressured it seemed like he had a hard time making a decision on who to throw to. Maybe the Panthers were running a soft coverage, but still Ramsey looked like a rookie back there.

Speaking of rookies, Nemo Broughton was probably the biggest highlight of the game. The guy is straight up a downhill runner, and he has decent speed for a guy that weighs 250. He will help us out tremendously on short yardage and goaline situations. Another rookie that stood out was Campbell. He showed great poise in the pocket and did a great job of making quick decisions. I only wish that we could see him with the 2nd team receivers instead of the guys that won't be here come week 1. But so far Campbell has impressed me, and for now it seems like Gibbs has found his QB for the future. It looks like the time off last year recharged Brunells batteries (especially his arm). He did a great a job of scanning the field and reading the defense, and at one point I saw throw a rope to McCants (WOW!!).

The defense was leaky, but then again we were missing 9 quality players. Delhomme and Weinke had all the time in the world to make plays which was dissapointing. But the run defense was decent. What stood out to me was the poor tackling and poor coverage downfield. I'm sorry to AJFC, but the ADE HAS TO GO. Seriously, he gets burned almost all the time and he's probably the worst tackler on the team.

On a positive note Campbell looked very composed and comfortable.

I'm just saying.......