SoCalBronco and Kaylore - (8/1) AM Reports

[Dream]

8/1 AM Report: Walker steals the show
By SoCalBronco

http://www.orangemane.com/article_748.php

QUARTERBACKS- There is something about morning practices with Jay Cutler, he does not seem to be as sharp as in the afternoons, when he is outstanding. Cutler had some issues with accuracy again, a little bit behind and a little bit ahead on some passes and overshot one deep ball. He did have several nice throws, however, including two beautiful deep balls to Javon Walker for touchdowns, which the crowd loved and continued to have a great sense of chemistry with Brandon Stokley. Cutler, did, however have his first “real” interception (the interception yesterday was really the fault of the receiver) of camp when Champ Bailey got underneath a quick out route, snatched the ball and took off. One thing I liked about Jay today was his pocket presence. Even though physical contact on the quarterback is prohibited, Jay could still sense when defenders got close and did a nice job sliding out and finding the open receiver near the sideline when he felt someone closing in. Patrick Ramsey continues to struggle with accuracy and pocket presence. Ramsey suffered several would be sacks from defenders due to his inability to process information quickly.

RUNNING BACKS- Travis Henry is very consistent. Another very strong day. He is showing explosion which isn’t a trait that often thought of as a key facet of his game. His vision is also very good, he did a very nice job in 9 on 9s in trusting his line and anticipating where the hole would be on the second level. He rarely runs into the backs of his offensive linemen. I wish he would get more touches in the passing game, though. On Sunday, he showed that he could be a very good receiver out of the backfield but has not really been used in that capacity much for the last few days of camp. The second best back in practice was SelvinYoung. He had several problems the last few days in constantly tripping and failing to find holes but he ran with a lot more authority today. Perhaps he sensed the pressure of being at the bottom of the depth chart. Andre Hall continues to show good speed and does well on perimeter run plays, but not so much on inside runs. Mike Bell had a very quiet morning and dropped another pass. Khan and I were talking about his Jekyll and Hyde nature a little bit, he seems to look like an elite running back one day and then like a third stringer the next. He is maddeningly inconsistent.

WIDE RECIEVERS AND TIGHT ENDS- Javon Walker was the star of the day. In addition to catching two sweet go routes from Jay Cutler, he also caught a number of difficult receptions with defenders in the vicinity. In his post practice press conference, he really said he is feeling good (on the football field) and is very comfortable in the offense. Brandon Stokley had another good day. He particularly excels at adjusting to throws that are not accurate. Right now, he continues to have a very firm grip on the No. 2 position. Domenik Hixon returned to practice today, one day after suffering a first degree separation of his shoulder, but did not stand out. He was matched up on Champ a few times and to no one’s surprise had a great deal of trouble. The rest of the wide receivers also continue to have difficulty making plays. Dan Graham’s highlight of the day was in move the ball drills when he caught a nice square out on the sideline that was a little bit high and in front. He still is not a major force in the passing game and has trouble separating. Webster was able to stick on him and swat away one pass in particular. I was able to summon the courage to actually ask Shanahan a question in the press conference about the timetable with Scheffler since they really need him and he noted that Tony should be back in practice next week. Reporter Sam Adams also asked him about Marshall and he seemed to be down on Marshall telling Adams that he told Marshall that they can’t waste reps on guys who are hurt and that people need to be out there (paraphrasing).

OFFENSIVE LINE:

I thought this was Ryan Harris’s best day of practice, yet. He has probably been the slowest of the rookies in terms of his day to day development, but I thought he took a nice step forward today. In the 11 on 11 and 9 on 9 action, he was able to neutralize fellow rookies Tim Crowder and Jarvis Moss a few times. I thought the offensive line in general struggled to run the ball (when Henry wasn’t in there) against any of the first, second or third string front sevens, although there were some individual plays that stood out for some of the youngsters that everyone is concerned about. Chris Kuper stoned DJ Williams on a blitz and Chris Myers absolutely pancaked Alvin McKinley. Chris Kuper is also very good at getting out to the perimeter on screens. I did not see Eric Pears struggle in live action too much and that was encouraging. Khan remarked that he was starting to feel better about the right side of our line. I would agree with him on Kuper, he is doing a nice job out there, he is consistently running with the one’s over Holland, but despite today, Pears still worries me (Meadows is a lost cause). I did not see it, but Khan observed in the drills that Eslinger was doing a little bit better.

DEFENSIVE LINE

Gerard Warren made an impact today, surprisingly enough, in the passing game. He actually was able to deflect some balls at the line of scrimmage and dropping back in a zone blitz. He also combined with Ekuban for a would be sack. Dumervil stood out as a pass rusher in the live 11 on 11 action, but he is still running on the third team base defense with Peterson, Veal and Burton. I did not notice Moss too much in live action but he did okay in drills. Tim Crowder was the best rookie today on the defensive line. He had a would be sack (which is rare for him) and he was good against the run. The best run defender on the line, however, was John Engelberger. He does a really good job in contain on the side opposite the wide 9. Coach Shanahan, in his press conference, said that John is an intelligent player and a very hard worker and (perhaps contrary to popular belief) he said that the reason they started John out as a starter in this camp was because he played well last year. I did not notice Marcus Thomas too much today. The defensive linemen should continue to get better because we are bringing in a specialist that works with handwork. Khan had gotten this information yesterday from his Moss interview and he had Shanahan confirm this today.

LINEBACKERS

Ian Gold returned to practice today and had his finest practice. He had been pretty quiet before, but did a very good job against the run today and had a nice hit. D.J. was not as successful in rushing the passer today as he was the last few days, but he did a good job covering the running backs in man to man defense, and made two very nice plays against the run, one in 9 on 9 and one in 11 on 11. Nate Webster ran with the first team today and it seems like each day he has at least one monster hit. He loves to talk out there too. Cameron Vaughn almost had an interception today on a really bad pass by Preston Parsons. Warrick Holdman was pretty decent today too and had a stuff at the line. The linebackers as a whole did a very good job against the run.

SECONDARY

Champ Bailey was shutdown as usual and had a pick six off Cutler. Dre Bly was ok, but he did get beat by Walker deep. I did not notice Paymah today too much, but he was okay as was Foxworth. Steve Cargile looks like a good backup safety. He is better there than he is at linebacker. He had another very nice pass deflection in which he showed good range. Jeff Shoate also had a good practice. I thought Hamza Abdullah was really outstanding. He is quick to come down in run force and looks like he has a talent for safety blitzes as well.


FIELD GOAL WORK

The team worked a bit on field goals in end of game situations this morning. Jason Elam was 6 of 8 from inside 40 yards with two kicks hitting the right crossbar and bouncing out.

SHANAHAN PRESS CONFERENCE

Today was pretty neat, we were actually able to get three questions in (Khan had two, I had one). Khan asked him about the rookies and Shanahan would not single out anyone in particular, but said that we should get a better view in a few more days as to who stands where. Khan also confirmed that we are bringing in a handwork specialist for the defensive line, who is a guy that Bates likes a lot. I, ofcourse, as noted earlier, asked about Scheffler, who Shanny said will be back next week. Shanny was down on Marshall, up on Engelberger, and was glad that Hixon was back today. A reporter asked him about the linebackers and he said that DJ looks comfortable and that Ian is ofcourse set at Will but that they still don’t know about Sam, the competition so far has not yet yielded a clear winner.

JAVON WALKER PRESS CONFERENCE

Javon feels healthy and is in good shape. He also feels very comfortable with the system and in his chemistry with Jay. He would not answer anything at all related to Darrent Williams and went out of his way to convey this. He said he will only talk about football and some reporter tried to sort of ask about how he is doing with the whole D-Will think in a subtle way but Javon recognized it and said “only football” again. He talked a bit about his Mohawk and said there was no real reason for it, just to try something new.

http://www.orangemane.com/article_748.php

[JoRo]

Thanks for posting it here

[DrewB]

Way to go Kaylore with the last question of the day

I am starting to worry a little about Marshall though...Hope he can get healthy and prove all the hype was warranted

[Dream]

Kaylore's Report from 8/1 AM

http://www.orangemane.com/article_749.php

Camp this morning was nice because it was a bit cooler and there seemed to be a fair amount of plays being made on both sides of the ball. One of the things to remember about camp is that after the first few days of two-a-days players start to fatigue and so some things get sloppy. This is part of the training camp experience and players really just need to fight through it.

They ran some more two-minute drills today with both stalling out. The defense still has the advantage over the offense, though Walker made some great plays as I’ll discuss later on.

The run defense was excellent today and they did a good job of making shifts along the D-line to adjust to the fronts that they saw. Generally it was difficult for anybody to run at all. There were also some shifts in performance from different players and think in a few days you’ll see some changes on the depth chart.

Another thing I noticed is that the defense is better at disguising their blitzes. In previous years the only one who was any good at a delayed blitz was Lynch and generally we just weren’t a good blitzing team unless we did a zero blitz. We’re getting better pressure on blitzes now and while it’s partly because of the better linemen, I also thing it’s a bit more size at linebacker and that we’re disguising it better.

Let’s get started.

Quarterbacks – The quarterbacks are progressing nicely and all are getting more settled into their throws and timing. I also think there is chemistry building between players and that is helping increase completions. Some of the big plays are starting to come and while the secondary is very stingy, as the timing of these things comes together we’ll see more opportunities to move the ball downfield. Parsons and Hackney still are playing second fiddle to Jay and Patrick, but the backup spot is open at this point.

Jay Cutler: Cutler had a good day but not as good as last night. SoCal and I feel that he plays better in the afternoon. He made some nice reads and does a much better job shifting around in the pocket during the much improved rush to buy time. I also like that he keeps his eyes down field. There were a few plays that were Plummer-ish where he just chucked it deep and hoped for the best but most of his reads were right and on time. The highlights were a few deep balls to Javon Walker that went for TD’s. On way play he threaded the ball between two defenders for a first down on third and long. That was his most impressive throw because he “had” to make it. He did record his first interception that was his fault when Bailey jumped a route to Graham and took it back for a score. Other than that he’s progressing well.

Patrick Ramsey: Ramsey is getting better too, though he’s still well behind Jay in his progress. He’s settling down in the pocket more. I also think that his protection is better than Jay’s and so he has more time. He did take some sacks, throws into coverage on occasion, and still has some serious accuracy issues.

One thing fans don’t understand is that the defense can’t touch the quarterback so if they sack him they just touch him. After a QB is “sacked” they let the play go on as if he wasn’t to give the receivers and corners some reps. Ramsey got sacked by Hamzah on one play but kept going and threw to Kircus down side. The fans applauded like it was a good play when really it was a net loss.

Defensive Backs – I’ll just hit on a few things I noticed. Bly and Bailey really are impressive. The youth at the position is exciting and I think Slowik really is a good teacher in getting these players to progress in their understanding of coverages and how offenses attack them.

Champ Bailey: Bailey had a pick and broke up a pass to Walker. It’s extremely difficult to get anything by him at all and generally QB’s just check down from him when he’s on the field. He’s still extremely physical in the run game and screens to his side were less than effective. In fact they ran some but rarely threw them his way.

Dre Bly: Bly makes it very hard to catch a ball if you don’t tuck it in immediately. In fact his biggest asset is what he does to the ball carriers after the catch. His coverage is excellent, but where Bailey tries to play the ball and watch the quarterback’s eyes, Bly attacks the receiver during the route and catch really does a nice job of making things hard for him from the snap of the ball to the end of the throw.

Kevin House: The coaching staff is really hi on this guy and praise from Slowik and Bates can be heard throughout practice. He is showing some progress and has better ball instincts that some of the other backups he plays with.

Dominique Foxworth: He continues to impress at both safety and corner. I think his versatility there will help him. I have concerns about his size but he’s playing more physical this year than in years past and that’s helped him make some plays and put on some big hits.

Curome Cox: He is always hustling. I would say he hustles more than the other DB’s. After the play is dead he’ll run with the ball carrier and try and punch the ball out when he’s not looking. He is very competitive in coverage and you can see he’s hard on himself. He’s the backup to Nick, so the coaches like what they see from him.

Hamzah Abdullah: He had a good practice. He blitzes well is very physical. I like how he wraps up and he seems light on his feet for a guy that’s 6’2”. I think if he can excel on special teams that Shanahan would consider using him more in certain packages.

Wide Receivers – The receivers did better because the better ones practiced today. Having both Stokely and Walker out there really helped open things up. Graham as a receiver is very average and until we get Scheffler back, the receiving corps is going to have some difficulty getting open and making plays.

Dominik Hixon: Hixon was out practicing and apparently he was playing through the pain because of his shoulder because he didn’t want the coaches to think he was soft or couldn’t handle things. This seemed like a decent move as a shoulder injury doesn’t have to be that much of a problem but hopefully he doesn’t aggravate it. As a receiver today he wasn’t that impressive, but he wasn’t horrible either.

Brandon Marshall: Marshall didn’t practice. I mention him here because in his press conference, Shanahan pretty much called him out for not practicing and getting on the field. Whatever Marshall’s problem is, Shanahan seems to believe that it’s something he could play thorough if he wanted to and that the time that he’s missing is hurting him.

Javon Walker: Walker was amazing today. He made some impressive throws, juked defenders after the catch to score a touchdown and was really getting into a groove with Cutler. He made some very difficult catches in traffic and his size, speed and athleticism are just too much for some of the other defensive backs to handle.

Brandon Stokely: Stokely excels at adjusting to the ball. He made some nice grabs and is a very crisp route runner. I was somewhat skeptical how he’d play practicing on grass and it appears to not be a problem at all. He’s worked his way into the starting lineup with Walker. If Smith comes back and Marshall gets back on the field, I would feel extremely confident with Walker, Stokely, Marshall and Smith.

Running backs – The running backs are also coming along better. They are starting to understand their role in the system and how to use the line to their advantage. Really, their success recently is more a sign that the offensive line is coming together.

Travis Henry: SoCal and I were talking about how good is getting, and I think he hit the nail on the head when he said that he’s become much better at anticipating what the line is going to do. Rather than just guessing, getting impatient or plowing into the back of his guard (as Tatum Bell would do), he understands where the defense is washing to and cutting back better. We haven’t had a cut-back guy like him in long time. His receiving skills are still far and away the best of the backs.

Mike Bell: He had another off day. He got blown up a lot and struggled in the receiving game. When Mike’s on, he is on and when he’s not, he just really struggles.

Selvin Young: Young looked much better today. I felt like he was going to get cut but he’s keeping his body more compact and showing better vision and burst through the line. I think he may have settled down and is starting to understand the system and what his role is in it.

Andre Hall: I got to seem catch a pass on a screen play and he really did well with it. I have him as a dark horse to make the team. He’s explosive, quick and built very solidly. As a change of pace back, he could really help us.

Cecil Sapp: Sapp did all right. He didn’t break anything open for huge gains, but he’s very hard to take down and his receiving abilities have really improved over last year. He’s the second best receiver of the running backs, and for a big guy that’s saying something.

[bleedbluorange]

Way to go Kaylore with the last question of the day

I am starting to worry a little about Marshall though...Hope he can get healthy and prove all the hype was warranted

I dont think Shanny is worried about his health. Sounds like he's trying to light a fire under Marshall. He seems to do it every camp. The team is counting on Marshall and Shanny knows it better than anyone.

[Dream]

The Lines – I didn’t get a great look at the lines today because I really wanted to watch the receivers, defensive backs and the quarterbacks. I will say that Moss is still extremely impressive and is getting less overwhelmed in the run game. On one pass play he went outside, then spun inside and when he still hadn’t broke through he leaped up very high (I don’t know what his vertical is, but at 6’6” and arms like tree branches he gets up there.) and deflected the pass. It was impressive and is just characteristic of his workhorse nature.

As Socal mentioned we got to ask Shanahan a few questions during his press conference. I’m sure those will posted in their entirety at other sites. They really didn’t have anyone available for interviews this afternoon, so I’ll try again tomorrow. Thanks guys!

http://www.orangemane.com/article_749.php

[Giveemlove]

I've heard in a few places that Paul Smith could be primed to take the starting position from Kyle Johnson, your thoughts?

[DrewB]

I've heard in a few places that Paul Smith could be primed to take the starting position from Kyle Johnson, your thoughts?

Need to see him in Pre-season 1st but it wouldn't surprise me...seems Denver has tried to replace Kyle for the last few years but have not found a viable replacement

[Giveemlove]

Need to see him in Pre-season 1st but it wouldn't surprise me...seems Denver has tried to replace Kyle for the last few years but have not found a viable replacement

Is Kyle not that good? I've heard in different circles that he is considered one of the better in the NFL? Was that incorrect?

[DrewB]

Is Kyle not that good? I've heard in different circles that he is considered one of the better in the NFL? Was that incorrect?

IMO He is an adequate blocker and he is above average reciever coming out of the backfield.

He is very solid

[CinnaMunMun]

If Kaylore comes in here, I have a question:

How is the special teams unit doing? There was a brief article in the newspaper, but it was hardly descriptive and I'm interested.

[jhns]

Is Kyle not that good? I've heard in different circles that he is considered one of the better in the NFL? Was that incorrect?

I don't remember if it was ESPN or Sports Illustrated, but one of them rated him as the number 6 fullback in the league when they where doing the top 10 of each position.

[Giveemlove]

Thanks Drew and jhns, it seems like there is always someone out for the job, but I guess the competition keeps the best guy playing. I really like Kyle's attitude and his play. Hope he sticks around.

[DrewB]

Thanks Drew and jhns, it seems like there is always someone out for the job, but I guess the competition keeps the best guy playing. I really like Kyle's attitude and his play. Hope he sticks around.

Getting a little of topic but you type really well for a seven year old

[Giveemlove]

Getting a little of topic but you type really well for a seven year old

LMAO!! I had to cover that in the feedback section. I guess when they did the update, they added the year to birthdate. I've tried to fix it, but the ad to the right covers the year box....

Dam it feels weird to be a 7 yr old.