Training Camp Observations Wednesday (1 Viewer)

jubo

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Team comes out in field as a team, (different) and to the Rocky theme song.
They stretch first (also different) Drew doing a Rocky imitation, like hands over head in fists and jumping, (you can picture it)
They continue stretching to Aerosmith Dream On

walk throughs Snead, Armstead, Lelito, Unger, Peat at guard
Luke and Drew playing around, laughing, pushing, etc. between snaps. Seem to be in a good mood, playing around, don't usually see Drew so light. Maybe it was the Rocky music earlier. It was much cooler, cloudy today, that may have put a pep in their step. Whole team seemed relaxed and in good moods today.

WR drills, running routes around pylon coming back for the ball. Williams-Lambert has a nice running style, always immediately catches ball and turns up field, like without thinking. Others just caught ball and got back in line. With him, it's like one move, catch/turn/run

RB/FB drills blocking each other.
Spiller and Hightower seemed to have their hands too much inside, I noticed this and then after drill that coach called both of them over and was motioning with his hands, like do it this way, hands wide, not this way, hands closer together. Johnson looked incredibly strong here and Sione Houma by far the most aggressive, he attacked not just blocked.

Forbath kicks a 55 yarder, and it barely hits the crossbar and barely bounces out. So close.

Hightower just doesn't give up, he just keeps going, every single time throughout camp.
Breaux had good coverage on Cooks, pass underthrown
Snead makes a nice deep catch on a pretty ball by Drew. Laurinaitis can't cover that. They do this a lot, expect a LB to cover a WR going deep. Surely there's a safety that could help over the top like that? That play will work every time if you pair LB with WR on a 40 some odd yard throw.
Ingram makes a nice cut to gain 10-12 yards, the cut was impressive.
Lasco makes a nice spin move to escape tackle. Stephone Anthony hits hard.
Luke out there now at QB.
Laurinaitis gets quick penetration for "sack"

They come get two random people from crowd, we think they are being kicked out for something, but no, they take them to the field and let them be captains I think. It looked like they flipped a coin and then they each took a kicker and they had a kick off. It was cool. It was close, they were even and kept moving them back until Barth missed, what looked like a 53 yarder and Forbath kicked a beauty at same distance. Earlier in this contest, Forbath was kicking really low, would be blocked in real game, but on this last one he kicked the prettiest one yet. High and split the uprights.
There was one questionable one early, players saying no good, guy in bucket behind goal posts saying good. Players booed. I couldn't tell, I was watching and was like was that good? Or no? Instant replay might have helped. SP decides it's good and contest continues. Barth did kick one from 33 yards that went out of the end zone and over the shrubs.

ST
Reggie Bell doing some fielding.
Crawley and Dillon Lee are quick to get to returner on these drills. They lead the pack.

11/11
Fleener misses a ball on the sidelines, there was an awful lot of OPI as well.
P.J. Gets fooled on screen, didn't get who the ball carrier was but he made PJ miss big.
Nice PBU by Vaccaro on Fleener. Of course he pushes him down, way out of bounds, well after play.
Next play Vaccaro gets to Drew very quickly, I was holding my breath. Nothing after play though. This is my fourth year watching him and its every camp, almost every play. But two nice back to back plays, PBU and sack.
D.Harris makes a nice PBU on Snead.
Vaccaro gets to Drew grabs back of jersey, let it go quickly. He's getting lots of pressure on QBs today.
Team comes out in field as a team, (different) and to the Rocky theme song.
They stretch first (also different) Drew doing a Rocky imitation, like hands over head in fists and jumping, (you can picture it)
They continue stretching to Aerosmith Dream On

walk throughs Snead, Armstead, Lelito, Unger, Peat at guard
Luke and Drew playing around, laughing, pushing, etc. between snaps. Seem to be in a good mood, playing around, don't usually see Drew so light. Maybe it was the Rocky music earlier. It was much cooler, cloudy today, that may have put a pep in their step. Whole team seemed relaxed and in good moods today.

WR drills, running routes around pylon cocking back for the ball. Williams-Lambert has a nice running style, always immediately catches ball and turns up field, like without thinking. Others just caught ball and got back in line. With him, it's like one move, catch/turn/run

RB/FB drills blocking each other.
Spiller and Hightower seemed to have their hands too much inside, I noticed this and then after drill that coach called both of them over and was motioning with his hands, like do it this way, hands wide, not this way, hands closer together. Johnson looked incredibly strong here and Sione Houma by far the most aggressive, he attaked, not just blocked.

Forbath kicks a 55 yarder, and it barely hits the crossbar and barely bounces out. So close.

Hightower just doesn't give up, he just keeps going, every single time throughout camp.
Breaux had good coverage on Cooks, pass underthrown
Snead makes a nice deep catch on a pretty ball by Drew. Laurinaitis can't cover that. They do this a lot, expect a LB to cover a WR going deep. Surely there's a safety that could help over the top like that? That play will work every time if you pair LB with WR on a 40 some odd yard throw.
Ingram makes a nice cut to gain 10-12 yards, the cut was impressive.
Lasco makes a nice spin move to escape tackle. Stephone Anthony hits hard.
Luke out there now at QB.
Laurinaitis gets quick penetration for "sack"

They come get two random people from crowd, we think they are being kicked out for something, but no, they take them to the field and let them be captains I think. It looked like they flipped a coin and then they each took a kicker and they had a kick off. It was cool. It was close, they were even and kept moving them back until Barth missed, what looked like a 53 yarder and Forbath kicked a beauty at same distance. Earlier in this contest, Forbath was kicking really low, would be blocked in real game, but on this last one he kicked the prettiest one yet. High and split the uprights.
There was one questionable one early, players saying no good, guy in bucket behind goal posts saying good. Players booed. I couldn't tell, I was watching and was like was that good? Or no? Instant replay might have helped. SP decides it's good and contest continues. Barth did kick one from 33 yards that went out of the end zone and over the shrubs.

ST
Reggie Bell doing some fielding.
Crawley and Dillon Lee are quick to get to returner on these drills. They lead the pack.

11/11
Fleener misses a ball on the sidelines, there was an awful lot of OPI as well.
P.J. Gets fooled on screen, didn't get ball carrier but he made PJ miss big.
Nice PBU by Vaccaro on Fleener. Of course he pushes him down, way out of bounds, well after play.
Next play Vaccaro gets to Drew very quickly, I was holding my breath. Nothing after play though. This is my fourth year watching him and its every camp, almost every play. But two nice back to back plays, PBU and sack.
D.Harris makes a nice PBU on Snead.
Vaccaro gets to Drew again grabs back of jersey, let it go quickly. He's getting lots of pressure on QBs today.
Spiller was wide open on screen, wide open, ball right between numbers, drops. It was ugly,
Luke throws to Tommylee but way to hard and it's a rare drop for TL. But not a good pass.
Brandon Dixon hits Cooks hard and fast but Cooks holds on. Most would have dropped that. Next play Dixon, again covering cooks, same route, almost an int. almost.
S.Anthony directing defense where to stand.

Lasco gets free for nice gain and then starts jogging(play over) everyone headed back to huddle but Lasco still jogging slowly, then Breaux comes from across field kind of jogging too, Lasco instinctively switches ball to other hand when he sees him headed slowly his way, and not like he was even close, but that shows habit to me. See defender from side vision, automatically put ball in other hand, away from defender, whether it's after play or not,nthat's habit. My guess is he didn't know he did it.

Spiller was wide open on screen, wide open, ball right between numbers, drops. It was ugly,
Luke throws to Tommylee but way to hard and it's a rare drop for TL. But not a good pass.
Brandon Dixon hits Cooks hard and fast but Vooks holds on. Most would have dropped that. Next play Dixon, again covering cooks, same route, almost an int. almost.
S.Anthony directing defense where to be.

Lots more ST drills.

Saw some Turner and Cheek in there and Jack Allen at center towards the end. In 11/11.

Light day I thought overall, and I think this is the first in a long time there was no interceptions, unless I missed one. I did go to the bathroom once. Drinking lots of water. But thanks to clouds, no one seemed overheated.

Can't wait till Friday at the Dome! Let's get loud. Many of these players have never seen the inside of the Dome or how crazy we can be! Who Dat!
 
Thanks. Really appreciate you taking your time to write this out. How does the offense look? Seem like they are getting better each day this week? How is Drew's deep ball throws? Zip or good touches?
 
Thanks for the report!

It appears we that we're having trouble covering those seam routes. I hope we get this corrected, because i'm sure other teams will try to exploit it.
 
Thanks. Really appreciate you taking your time to write this out. How does the offense look? Seem like they are getting better each day this week? How is Drew's deep ball throws? Zip or good touches?

It seems like the offense is catching up to the defense. I agree, each day this week the offense has improved. Drew looks good on deep balls, he looks like the same Drew to me.
This is going to sound weird, and I debated on how or even if to write it, but somehow the offense seems more in sync even since Monday. Can't put my finger on it, just more settled, more sure of responsibilities, not sure, just a feeling of calmness somehow.
 
It seems like the offense is catching up to the defense. I agree, each day this week the offense has improved. Drew looks good on deep balls, he looks like the same Drew to me.
This is going to sound weird, and I debated on how or even if to write it, but somehow the offense seems more in sync even since Monday. Can't put my finger on it, just more settled, more sure of responsibilities, not sure, just a feeling of calmness somehow.

That is my impression so far. I guess as fans we tend to push the panic button too soon, and for good reason. But we all agree no one really knows what is going on behind the scene. But just from your report and some of the media, seem like the offense is slowly getting back their "mojo" back.
 
Thanks for the report!

It appears we that we're having trouble covering those seam routes. I hope we get this corrected, because i'm sure other teams will try to exploit it.

That's something I just don't understand, having never played the game (obviously) I don't get why they continue to send LB to cover WR in the middle of the field with no safety help. If that's a seam route, then that's the same play they just continue to run in practice and having watched both preseason games several times, I saw it there too, except against Pats and Texans and not our defense. Asking way too much from 90% of LB to catch up to WR 30-40 yards downfield.

Is the safety coming up to the line and shouldn't? Is he biting on play? Or is it not designed for him to cover deep? It seems like a cover two, but again, I get the terminology wrong sometimes, because I've just kind of taught myself, read a lot, but just guessing a lot.
 
Thanks much Jubo. Your efforts and insights are much appreciated.
 
That's something I just don't understand, having never played the game (obviously) I don't get why they continue to send LB to cover WR in the middle of the field with no safety help. If that's a seam route, then that's the same play they just continue to run in practice and having watched both preseason games several times, I saw it there too, except against Pats and Texans and not our defense. Asking way too much from 90% of LB to catch up to WR 30-40 yards downfield.

Is the safety coming up to the line and shouldn't? Is he biting on play? Or is it not designed for him to cover deep? It seems like a cover two, but again, I get the terminology wrong sometimes, because I've just kind of taught myself, read a lot, but just guessing a lot.

I think it has a lot to do with lack of pressure. I mean even LBs are great athletes and can hold off that route for a good while, especially with TEs usually nit coming off the line completely clean. It's just when the qb gets too nice a pocket that's a home run throw and the defense looks silly. Any pressure and it's a risky pass over the field.
 
That's something I just don't understand, having never played the game (obviously) I don't get why they continue to send LB to cover WR in the middle of the field with no safety help. If that's a seam route, then that's the same play they just continue to run in practice and having watched both preseason games several times, I saw it there too, except against Pats and Texans and not our defense. Asking way too much from 90% of LB to catch up to WR 30-40 yards downfield.

Is the safety coming up to the line and shouldn't? Is he biting on play? Or is it not designed for him to cover deep? It seems like a cover two, but again, I get the terminology wrong sometimes, because I've just kind of taught myself, read a lot, but just guessing a lot.

Exactly. If we stick to our base defense on Friday, I'm sure Pittsburg will run the same play.

cover2.gif


From looking at this picture, it sounds like it's Cover-2 that we're running. As someone pointed out that it's maybe the lack of a pass rush, but maybe the safeties can sneak over after so many seconds of realizing that the ball is not near their area.
 
Exactly. If we stick to our base defense on Friday, I'm sure Pittsburg will run the same play.

cover2.gif


From looking at this picture, it sounds like it's Cover-2 that we're running. As someone pointed out that it's maybe the lack of a pass rush, but maybe the safeties can sneak over after so many seconds of realizing that the ball is not near their area.

It's match zone. Once the LB determines the route is a vertical route he carries it. Especially in Cover 3. There should be a safety converging over the top but the purpose of all Verticals is to freeze the safety. So the fact that those seam routes are working are just a design of the offense to attack that particular D.

All verys kill cover 2 as well but on the sidelines behind the corner in front the safety. Sounds like these are happening behind the LB in front the safety which suggest 3 being played because ud attack the very against the LB.

Could b wrong hope that helps flesh

A lot of it has to do with the coverage ability of the LB because the S is not going to get there because he has to safe guard against the other verts. If you notice Robertson has intercepted or knocked down quite a few of those seam routes and it was likely in the same situation
 
Of course offense looks better in practice with very little hitting. The OL lack of blocking does not stand out in those type drills.
 
Jubo, I know you hear it a bunch but thanks so much for doing these. For a displaced Saints fan like me these write ups are fantastic. You're awesome.
 
Very kind words, coming from y'all! Means a lot. I enjoy doing it. I wish there was film that I could watch, there's so much I miss, but I look forward to camp every year!
 

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