I told you I would write a report, but it took quite some time to get it all down. I had no idea how much I absorbed from yesterdays practices. Anyways, here goes. Day 2: Saturday August 1, 2009 While I know my report will have nothing on the likes of the best reports from the past, this was my first ever trip to camp, and I made the mistake of trying to watch everybody, so I couldn’t really keep track of the stats especially the QB stat lines, so you will just have to bear with me for my first report. QB Battles In one-on-ones Clemens won pretty handily, Sanchez under threw several balls and threw an interception to Eric Smith. Sanchez seemed to just not see Smith until after the ball was thrown. Mean while Clemens wasn’t exactly all-world, he was pretty solid overall, including one deep pass to Leon Washington that would have resulted in a touchdown. Team drills started off with a bang as Clemens led an 80 yard td drive showcased by two passes that were absolutely perfect. One was a deep route to Keller and the second was a seam-post to Cotchery who was blanketed by two players. Sanchez led a 3 and out that saw his first play (a screen to Jones) backed up by a holding penalty. Clemens then retook the field and was picked off by Leonard, and then on his next series Clemens was also picked off by Leonard as he tried to force the ball into double coverage (Lito Sheppard underneath with Rhodes over top) Lito tipped it right to a trailing Leonhard. Ainge vs. Pizzotti is much harder to diagnose based on one practice, simply because neither was getting many reps. Ainge received the majority of “game speed” reps. He did have some nice passes in one-on-ones, but again he was throwing against our last string DBs, most of the time he was throwing to Clowney and Brad Smith. But in the simple non-coverage drills, Ainge was not overly impressive, as he often missed on his targets; he was often a little behind or a little underthrown. Pizzotti on the other hand was nearly perfect in all facets of what I saw. His footwork was flawless, he was never asked to stop and repeat a snap due to faulty footwork, the other three were all stopped at least once, Ainge 3-4 times, while the other two were only stopped once. Pizzotti also looks the part of the quarterback, I never saw him throw anything that wobbled, every time it was a tight spiral to where it needed to go. Again I saw wobblers out of every body else’s hands, not many in the case of Sanchez/Clemens but Ainge had some wobbly ducks especially on the long ball. But Pizzotti was never given the opportunity to step into a live drill and show what he had. He did not get any reps in the one-on-ones and he wasn’t given a drive as far as team drills were concerned. The only “game speed” snaps he was given, was when the OL was working on opening holes for TJ/Leon/Greene and he handed off twice I believe. Overall I am a little worried about Sanchez, because if this is his normal practice that I witnessed today, he is definitely not ready to start for the Green and White, and Clemens far outshined him today, even though he threw one more interception, Sanchez was unimpressive, and he often displayed “happy feet” in the pocket when the drills weren’t designed to attempt to sack him, but make him find the hot receiver. Pizzotti also caught my eye as he seems to be doing the little things right to get noticed. That said having never seen him throw a pass to a covered receiver I haven’t the faintest clue what he will look like when it’s not just pitch and catch. RB’s In the middle of practice, a drill was set up to pit our rushing LB’s against the RB’s attempting to protect their QB. It hardly seemed fair, and the defense won more often than not, but it still was one of the best drills of the day. The Blitzers Pace BT Gholston Brandon Renkhart Craig Kobel Jamaal Westerman The Protectors Tony Richardson Thomas Jones Leon Washington Jehuu Caulcrick Brock Christopher First off Calvin Pace was torching everybody he went up against, if he had 12-15 reps he got stonewalled only once. It really is going to hurt our defense to see him miss the first four games. Secondly BT was our second best at reaching the QB, and got through maybe a little under half the time he blitzed. Gholston was not the third best blitzer, that prize went to Renkhart he was flying around everybody not named T-Rich, Thomas Jones or Jehuu Caulcrick. Very impressive drill for Renkhart. To be honest the other blitzers didn’t do anything of note, but I did notice Westerman had a few moves he was throwing around a swim move, a spin off once contacted and a straight bull rush, Gholston on the other hand bull rushed every time and the only guy I remember him beating was Christopher and the QB would have gotten rid of the ball by then. I should also mention that even though these guys were getting by our RBs in pass protection, several times the ball would have been thrown before they got through. The Rb’s who impressed me in this drill was everybody except Christopher and Greene, Christopher wasn’t a turnstile but he wasn’t a rock either, once pace came on a bull rush and Christopher stopped him at first, and Pace kept churning his legs and both ended up on top of each other at the feet of the QB. Greene simply was awful the worst of the bunch, he was struggling against the bull rush early on, so when he corrected for that, somebody came at him hard and then swam outside and Greene pretty much whiffed. Several times even Gholston was able to get on his inside and Greene did what any good guy trying to protect his QB from a quick and painful shot, he held very obviously I might add, not once, not twice but at least 3 or 4 times. As usual T-rich and TJ were pretty much rocks, Pace beat them both, but most likely the ball would have been gone and BT did get TJ once. Block of the Day Remember last year against the Patriots Adalius Thomas got a free blitz and Leon picked him up? Leon was sent flying into Brett Favre and it was one of the ugliest plays I had seen in a long time. Most of us remembered thinking after that, that Leon simply couldn’t be left in to block the big boys any more or our QB’s could get killed. Not so anymore. Leon was one of the best out there, he showed no fear, and instead of waiting for the blitzer to come to him, he was aggressive and brought the fight to the defender. He stonewalled everybody not named Pace and BT, he was dynamite back there. But the block of the day was Leon against #51 Craig Kobel. Kobel started into a dead bull rush Leon lashed out and stopped him cold, Kobel switched to a swim move that Leon shut down almost before it started, Kobel tried to spin around him still Leon held him off, the coaches actually blew the whistles to stop the play because a good 6-8 seconds had gone by and Leon had totally shut him down. It was the only true stonewall of the day, and not only that but Kobel had a good 3-5 inches on Leon not to mention probably 30-40 pounds. Half the crowd cheered after Leon held him off. The majority of the RB’s practice was basically working with the OL to find the open holes and hit them hard. When we got into team drills, TJ was ripping them off for 6-8 with ease, however Jenkins had already left the field for the day. Leon was also slicing and dicing, he was especially noticeable during the KR sequence that Westoff set up, even though it was really about setting up the wedge and finding the whole, Leon was finding ways to knife his way upfield for big yardage. Greene was again the worst of the bunch, he wasn’t seeing the cutback lanes that opened up and he would try and hit the hole hard, even if there wasn’t a hole to be hit. What I can say for him is he kept churning his legs when he hit a pile and he wasn’t easy to bring down. But he needs to learn to see with his eyes and not just put his head down and run hard. Caulcrick has really improved, there really wasn’t much of a drop-off when T-Rich left and he stepped in. I still would rather have T-Rich, but should something happen to him, I think Caulcrick is ready to step in and play. Also Danny Woodhead was on the Sidelines for the day, I don’t know if the same can be said for Friday or not, but he was working with a trainer who had him doing conditioning drills and change of direction drills. My guess is they want to make sure his knee is nearly 100% before they let him do contact drills. From what I saw of him in shorts and a tee shirt, the guy is tiny, but like Leon he appears to be lightning fast and with his determination I could see him making the PS this year, and then next year snagging a roster spot.
WR’s The most interesting thing to me, is that ever y snap all day Stuckey was running as the #2 WR. It doesn’t sound much like a competition to me, it sounds more like Stuckey has it in the bag. Brad Smith was running as the 3 and Clowney the 4, although Clowney got some reps as the 3 in the middle of the day. Stuckey has hands like glue, and so does Cotchery. Smith dropped some passes today but Clowney seemed to have left his stick-em at home yesterday, he was dropping nearly as many as he caught, which is bad because he didn’t run a ton of routes against coverage yesterday… Wallace Wright surprised me, he was running crisp routes and didn’t drop anything that I saw either. The guys who are vying for what is likely the last WR spot on the roster gave me a little pause, for the most part they have pretty good hands. In fact out of the whole WR corps I maybe noticed 10-12 drops on the day, with the majority going to Clowney with maybe 4. Mario Urrutia had a few drops but he seems to be pretty quick for his size, also Paul Raymond made me wonder if he will be on the roster come the first preseason game. He had a few drops himself, and for being so tiny (he looked to be about as tall as Leon, but they never stood next to each other, so I can’t tell you how tall he really is) he isn’t really an elite speedster. His only shot to stick is if he becomes a special teams wizard. The guys I didn’t notice yesterday were Marcus Henry, Britt Davis and Huey Whittaker. The fact they didn’t stand out probably is a good thing I think. It means they weren’t dropping passes, and as a result I didn’t notice them because I was focusing on the QB competition most of the day. TE’s Keller is going to be an absolute animal this year. I said it before in that Madden Ratings thread, and I am reiterating here. The guy was explosive, and clearly the number 2 passing option his hands have clearly improved since last year and I just can’t wait to see him in action. To top it off, they had him split out wide and they had him going in motion everywhere today, he’s going to be integral to our offense. The guy who was basically running the #2 TE spot was # 46 Jack Simmons. He caught my eye, he was way more athletic than a TE should be, he has solid hands and was a pretty solid blocker, better than Keller (who appears much better than last year I might add) at least as far as I saw. Honestly I want us to keep this guy as the #2 based on what I saw yesterday move on. The #3 TE today was J’Nathan Bullock. His name does him justice, because he just looks like a bull out there. He is huge and incredibly athletic. He has soft hands for someone who hasn’t played football in a long time. He like Keller will present serious match up problems, all he needs to do is learn to block, because he really isn’t very good at this point. Richard Owens who was recently signed sat out this practice too he spent it with the trainer who had him doing lots of rehab exercises and spending plenty of time on the hand bike. For my money I don’t care what he does out there I want Simmons as our backup TE and Bullock as our #3 guy in training. OL No news on the OL front, our top 5 is dominant although a little flag prone yesterday. Didn’t see much out of the OL group, because I was paying attention to everyone else. Although #56 C Michael Parenton caught my eye as a dark horse to nab a spot as a backup. DL Again wasn’t paying much attention to these guys, but I did notice Marques Douglas appears to be a bit of an upgrade over Kenyon Coleman, he was in on a number of run plays and appeared to at least push the pocket a little bit. Also Zach Potter caught my eye as somebody who could stick, nobody else really stood out in a good way to me today. As all of you know by now Jenkins left the field mid practice after a run play and he was limping pretty badly on his way to the trainers tent, but he never asked for help, and didn’t appear to be in serious pain, so my guess at the time was that it was either cramping in his leg or a muscle pull. Turns out I was right and big Jenks won’t miss much time. I did wonder however, just how that table was holding him up, I thought for sure it would buckle…. Moving on. The Run D was pretty weak after Jenks left, as I mentioned above TJ was ripping off 6-8 yards pretty easily. To counteract that I saw us throw in some 4-3 combinations and the run went back to being slowed down. LB’s Pace was great today sadly we are going to miss him quite a bit. However I think between Renkhart and Westerman we will be ok as far as pass rushing goes, as for somebody covering a TE, I think that will have to be Rhodes/Leonhard taking care of that. Neither ILB really caught my eye in team drills. As I am sure you noticed by now, I was paying attention to the offense today. CB’s As previously mentioned Lito Sheppard was the reason for Clemens second INT, even if Leonhard gets credit for it. Revis didn’t even have a pass thrown his way in team drills today. Lowery was solid in shutting down his receiver when Sanchez was QB for team drills. Also #27 Donald Strickland was covering the slot guy all day and he really shut down Brad Smith for the most part. S’s Rhodes was all over the place jawing it up and he was in tight coverage all day, the only pass he got beat on was Clemens beauty to Cotchery, Rhodes picks it off if it was long, and if it was short Lito would have been all over it, but the pass was perfect, great confidence by Clemens to stick it in. Of course he tried to do it again and that resulted in his second INT of the day. Leonhard had the noticeable day in the secondary, with the two INT’s he was also flying everywhere, never once got beat in coverage and you can tell the rest of the defense is looking to him along with Bart Scott to be leaders this year. Trick plays They ran an end around today to Clowney which got totally blown up after about a 2 yard gain, nobody was fooled and Clowney got crunched. Also they had a new Wildcat setup going today. With a QB split out wide, while Leon was QB and TJ next to him, it worked great both times they tried it, Leon held the ball just long enough to draw the defense in and flipped the screen pass to TJ. The first one TJ dropped, and smacked his helmet because he had nearly the whole field open for him to run. The second time it got tipped at the line and while not the easiest grab still should have been caught by TJ. But again the whole side of the field was pretty much open to run. That will work great for us in a game one day. ST Feeley kicked 4 field goals all day, just about 45 yards. Drilled all four right down the middle. In the afternoon it became painfully obvious that Feeley wants to be a real football player but just realizes at his size he would get turned into a pancake. For the ST practice, Conley was kicking sideline to sideline and Feeley was mock returning punts, juking around people who jogging around and stretching out. Feeley even caught one behind his back to draw some applause from the crowd. The ST practice in the afternoon was all about punt protection, we could here Westoff barking at the players from the top of the Cortland bleachers where it was the shadiest. Guys that stood out to me as far as rushers were Marques Murrell, even he hadn’t been instructed not to actually block the kick, he might have blocked 3. Wallace Wright also knifed in and might have blocked one himself. The punting competition yesterday was impressive. Granted most of the time Conley and Hodges were kicking with a slight breeze at their backs but that didn’t explain it all. Conley was pretty much routinely blasting bombs of 50+ while Hodges average was probably about 43. However, both had a signature punt that was pretty amazing. Conley was standing on his own ten and the ball was caught by Leonhard who was hightailing it backwards inside of the ten. By my yardage count, Conley’s punt traveled over 70 yards in the air. Hodges punt might have been more impressive. The ball was hiked from the 1 yard line and Hodges blasted it so that it landed about the 25, and rolled down inside of the 3 yard line before Leon tracked it down and scooped it up. Overall I prefer Conley but I Hodges has certainly gotten better at kicking distance. Both had dynamite hang time, and even if they didn’t boot a ball 45 yards plus they at least had it in the air quite a while so as to prevent any return at all. On a side note Leonhard really got the crowd going after Leon muffed two out of three punts because he wasn’t paying attention because Westoff was barking orders about the protection, so Leonhard managed to get Leon a standing ovation for catching the next one, so Leon jogged up front and waved a little bit. If memory serves I believe I saw Rex chuckle a little bit… I wanted to point this out because to me it shows that the guys are having fun out there, and it really looks like Leonhard is another great guy to have on our team. That is my camp report on yesterdays 2 practices, any feedback is greatly appreciated. Also if anybody goes into Cortland for camp I recommend the Community Restaurant for lunch, it had good stuff when I stopped in yesterday.
Excellent report. :metal: I get the Big 10 Channel as part of my cable package and a week ago they replayed an Iowa / Northwestern (?) game. Besides dying for some football I was interested to watch Greene. Running the ball he was an animal, bouncing off players left and right.....BUT..... when it came to pass blocking the guy was a turnstyle. So much so that the commentators were openly discussing his poor technique and un-willingness to meet the pass rusher head on.
yesterday it was very clear he was in over his head. He has yet to adjust to the speed of the NFL level and one of its top defenses (well hopefully). Blocking wise, it really looked like he hadnt really ever been taught. It was obvious he was trying but his technique was bad and he didnt know how to stay in front of a bull rusher.
That's an awesome report! Are u going to any practice sessions next week? I am going back to NYC on Monday and would appreciate if I could use your reports on the site.
good report. good to see pace had a great day, we'll need someone good in the pass rush for the latter part of the season. i am dying for the day when one of the QB's has a clear cut #1 day at TC.
Nice report - I don't know how I missed this earlier. I'm especially glad to hear that Keller has improved his blocking skills. Hopefully we hear more of that.
To be honest, after that first drive that Clemens had with the two perfect passes, I thought for sure he was having that day. But his last two passes were awful. To be honest his first INT was terrible I think his internal time clock to get rid of the ball had expired and he just tried to get rid of it, he was in the pocket so rather than throw it OB he just tried to throw it away and when he tried to throw it behind the WR in the dirt, Leonhard just happened to be there to pick it out of the dirt. On the second one, he just tried to force it, it was basically the same pass as the 40 yarder to Cotchery same coverage, only this time instead of a perfect pass he was off by just a touch, and as a result it got tipped and ultimately picked off by Leonhard.
actually Petro I was looking at your pictures on the main website, the couple of shots you took of big Jenks as he was hobling off the field, and in the trainers tent, you must have been standing right near me. were you down in the lower right hand corner of the stands next to the trainers tent? that would be slightly infuriating seeing as how I would have been right next to you... As far as the rest of camp, I would love to go again, I found it a great experience, but I will be struggling to find time. I work just under 65 hours this week and the same the next. I do have next saturday off though so I may make the 2 hour journey up to cortland next weekend. Also later tonight I find out what my 2nd job schedule for the rest of the week, if I have thursday night off I will do everything in my power to be at the Green and White scrimmage.
nice work, nyjetsrule....very detailed. Looks like our secondary could be for real this year.....hopefully Strickland keeps it up.
still though you had to have walked right behind me, which is pretty interesting. kind of wish we had some TGG t-shirts so we could recognize each other at TC and what-not
