Any Positives From Tonight's Game?

[dmek25]

from the looks of the starters that were sitting on the bench in the latter part of the game, they didnt seem to concerned about a whole lot. they understand that players make up a sucessful situation, and some of the players that participated last night will not be around come opening day.all im saying is the final product is far from what we saw last night

[GTripp0012]

Havent seen the game yet because I have no local market here, but I'll catch the NFL Network rerun @ 2 today.

Really, really not worried about the preseason at all.

Is Griffin OK? Has anyone heard?

[Big C]

sellers is looking like an awesome fullback

[JankySpanky80]

What if they're all great actors and throwing these games so teams prepare for us differently. They say its vanilla, so maybe on sept. 11th they'll add some hot fudge......lol

[RiggoRules]

The biggest positive from last night is that Gibbs is pissed. With his skills, I am confident that will translate into a more motivated team.

Other positives:

* Campbell -- especially the way he came back from the INT. What I love about JC more than anything else is his poise and confidence. He has a presence that Eli Manning will probably never have. JC makes me very excited for the future. I'm a huge opponent of ever using any first round pick on a QB. JC is an exception to that.
* REL's play.
* Riggo's color commentary (he and Patrick should replace the current MNF crew -- Riggo does a better job of what both TK and JT do, he is a 2for1 deal). Sure, the constant plugs for his radio show were a bit over the top, but it was actually self depricating humor.
* No bimbo sideline reporters (btw, when I am elected King of the World, my first act will be to outlaw bimbo sideline reporters). Although I would make one huge exception: http://www.thewarpath.net/warpath-pa...au-thread.html
* Thrash.
* Collins put himself more securely in the #3 slot. Maybe there is a deal to be made w/ the Jets for Bollinger (who is unlikely to make the team). Not a big fan, but he sure as hell is better than TC.
* Sellers is a stud as FB. I really like how Saunders is using TE/FB as opposed to the H-Back approach. It is more specialized and that part of the game is looking pretty good.

On the less than positive side:

* The game looked like crap on my HDTV. OMFG, they even cut off the top scoreboard. It looked worse than the Skins did.
* Patten not only probably cost himself his job, but he put a pretty big dent in any trade value.
* Espy took a step back on a night when he had a chance to win a roster slot outright. He isn't done yet, but he could have been in and those opportunities don't come along that often.
* The defensive and ST break downs. This was both mental error stuff and football fundamental stuff (tackling 101 -- some of these guys should sign up for a subscription to Bill Parcell's Back Yard Drills).
* Not enough close up shots of the smokin hot cheerleaders during the broadcast (although, because of no HD, not that big a deal). I mean come on, the game was ugly. Let's entertain people.

[budw38]

I cannot tell how the team is playing in preseason , didn't we score 40 pts per game under Spurrier , and it was no indication on the perfrormance those years . I'am concerned that A. Carter has not been a factor as a pass rusher in two games .

[Beemnseven]

Originally Posted by budw38

I am concerned that A. Carter has not been a factor as a pass rusher in two games .

Excellent point, and it probably hasn't been made enough. Carter, and the D-line has applied about as much pressure on the quarterback as it did the last two seasons -- not nearly enough. While they haven't been on the field all that much in the last two games, they played the full first half last night and didn't look much better.

[JankySpanky80]

Originally Posted by Beemnseven

Excellent point, and it probably hasn't been made enough. Carter, and the D-line has applied about as much pressure on the quarterback as it did the last two seasons -- not nearly enough. While they haven't been on the field all that much in the last two games, they played the full first half last night and didn't look much better.

Its gonna get worse if Griffin misses some time also

[SmootSmack]

Campbell's arm is ridiculous, he leans back too often though like he's shooting a fadeaway jumper or something. But man, what an arm

Was it just me or after the first play from scrimmage on offense when Betts got stuffed did Thomas raise his hands as if to say "What the hell play are we running?" Like there was some miscommunication

I'm not worried about the offense really, but the special teams is abysmal.

[JankySpanky80]

Originally Posted by TAFKAS

Campbell's arm is ridiculous, he leans back too often though like he's shooting a fadeaway jumper or something. But man, what an arm

Was it just me or after the first play from scrimmage on offense when Betts got stuffed did Thomas raise his hands as if to say "What the hell play are we running?" Like there was some miscommunication

I'm not worried about the offense really, but the special teams is abysmal.

I watched the game again today and our kickoff coverage on the runback had guys on it that aren't gonna make the team anyways. Nemo, Farris, White were out there. Hell Kary campbell wasn't even out there on that play and he is one of our best Special Teamers. Nor was Sellars

[BigSKINBauer]

Originally Posted by JankySpanky80

Its gonna get worse if Griffin misses some time also

I was at the game and when grif was on the groud i didn't know who it was because the trainers were crowding him. I called up a friend at home he said it was griffin and they went to break. After a few minutes griffin gets up and runs back to the sideline. Actually runs, i am not sure if that was on tv. After the game griffin was golf carted to his car.

[budw38]

Lets hope that they turn it up a notch when the season really begins on September 11 ! The good news is that if Brunell plays well and Campbell improves through practice < maybe some game time > this season , we should be strong at all but backup O - Line and D Line . Vinny , if you read this ,,, draft a pass rusher next year ,,,,, PLEASE

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by budw38

Lets hope that they turn it up a notch when the season really begins on September 11 ! The good news is that if Brunell plays well and Campbell improves through practice < maybe some game time > this season , we should be strong at all but backup O - Line and D Line . Vinny , if you read this ,,, draft a pass rusher next year ,,,,, PLEASE

Yeah, I hope a big DE with athleticism is still there when Washington goes on the clock in the first round. Even if Carter plays up to potential, Daniels and Wynn are getting much older.

Maybe we need O-line help more. Thats not a job for the first round though.

[hesscl34]

Originally Posted by budw38

Lets hope that they turn it up a notch when the season really begins on September 11 ! The good news is that if Brunell plays well and Campbell improves through practice < maybe some game time > this season , we should be strong at all but backup O - Line and D Line . Vinny , if you read this ,,, draft a pass rusher next year ,,,,, PLEASE

I've decided I just flat out hate pre-season! It makes everyone question the team, the coaches, if we are really good or not. We can't see our 1st string play for real, and when they do play they only play for 5mins and you can tell they don't care at all about winning. When I watch the Skins I’m involved, I’m watching intently, I can’t wait to cheer and yell and watch them make a great play. It just doesn’t happen in pre-season. It's upsetting, it crushes morale! I HATE PRE-SEASON. I'm not turning on another game until 9/11.

[Mc2guy]

Ok,

So I finally got to sit down and carefully rewatch the first two quarters from Saturday again. Fortunatly the HDDVR is back up and running so I could really see what was happening on the line. Here are my observations and they are mostly positive. Some of these observations have already been stated but hopefully this is not too repetitive. This is long, so I apologize in advance.

Offense -
1) We ran everything out of very simple formations with limited or no motion. WR's split wide two TE's on the line and FB/HB in I formation. That or two WRs split right with the slot guy invariably running a zone seam route.
2) We threw way more than we would during the regular season. There were several pass plays where I expect we could/would have run the ball during the regular season.
3) O-line did a decent job in pass protection except for the first Campbell sack, where JJ tried to cut block the blitzing LB and missed entirely and Cooley went into the flat without chipping the safety blitzer.
4) Brunell looked good, with only one really "bad" throw where he put it 3 yards over the receivers head.
5) There were better and bigger holes than the running stats would indicate. I saw three separate plays where the o-line did a good job with the front 4 and Sellars wrecking balled himself deep into the LB's to no avail because Betts was EXTREMEMELY slow to the hole. I was very surprised to see it, but Betts was clearly missing the hole and was almost 5 yards behind Sellars on one play. Obviously with that kind of gap, the hole was filled and Betts ends up getting stuffed by a safety or DT who has recovered from the initial block. Seriously, my grandma could have ended up with 5 YPC if she just ran 1 yard behind Sellars. This is total speculation, but perhaps this is why Ducket is being considered. I was very disappointed in Betts after seeing that.
6) Campbell makes great throws, even in the face of pressure...when he's on his progression. Unfortunately, when the routes break down, he resorts to the classic "Favrian" mentality of most gunslingers and tries to force the ball into close coverage. Result...INT.

Defense.
1) The defense ran mostly a 4-3, but did drop into a 5-2 occasionally, mostly on obvious passing downs.
2) Run defense was VERY simple, almost like GW was trying to put the defense in a bad position to see them shed blocks. On most obvious running plays the front 4 lined up mano a mano with the O-line leaving the center to plow into the LB corps leaving a nice hole, which is where much of the yardage came from. The first team front 4 (which was not intact once Killings came in on the second drive) was not doing a good job shaking off blocks in that formation.
3) When the front 4 stunted (which I saw only 3 times in the first half)the result was a sack or zero gain (including Archuletta's sack)
4) Wright did a very good job covering Coles. Coles only plays were short crossing stuff where the DB gets picked off, or when the play broke down and he ran back toward the QB, which is nearly impossible to defend and doesn't result in much YAC.
5) 60 yard run was a result of over pursuit, which concerns me because it bit us for big yards last year as well (think LTs run against the Chargers). GW's genius only goes as far as the player's ability to execute. Like Buddy Ryan's famous "46" GW relies heavily on aggression, which IMHO becomes a liability when the first defender to the ball doesn't tackle well.

Special teams:
1) Aweful on almost all fronts, although they were using mostly scrubs, so tough to say.

I'll try to get to the second half tonight, but I may not have the time.