Sheriff Gonna Getcha
08-01-2004, 12:41 PM
I went to training camp on Saturday afternoon. My impressions:
1. It was so frickin hot, every player earned their combat pay that day.
2. I thought there were 10,000 people there (Redskins.com is reporting that 5,000 showed for the am practice and another 5,000 showed for the pm practice).
3. The practice was MUCH shorter than I expected.
4. It was nice to see Chad Morton return a punt for a touchdown when I first came into camp. He is even faster in person than he looks on TV and I can see why he is such a return threat.
5. Chris Cooley isn't as big as I expected him to be.
6. James Thrash and Laveranues Coles have amazingly quick feet and if Coles' toe is bothering him, I couldn't tell one bit. I have never seen anyone juke left, right, left, right, and then zoom downfield as quickly as he does.
8. Clinton Portis made a few very nice moves. He looks like a slightly bigger Laveranues Coles in the backfield; if you blink, you're going to miss some moves that will make you ohh and ahhhh and want to laugh at how stupid he can make defensive players look. It is going to be fun watching him.
9. Tupa was booming a few punts yesterday, I didn't see one shank.
10. Special teams were practicing like crazy. Special teams were out there
80% of the time running drills. I saw 7-7 drills for about 30 minutes.
11. Brunell and Ramsey both have cannons for arms. Brunell threw a pass so hard to Clinton Portis, I was expecting Portis' hands to come off.
Brunell looked pretty good out there (not as much rust as Ramsey). It's funny, Brunell has got great touch but he couldn't throw as nice a deep ball as Ramsey. Ramsey was throwing nice deep balls, but wasn't throwing the greatest dump-off passes.
Also, Ramsey seemed to be holding onto the ball a bit too long.
Both QBs were throwing a disproportionate number of dump-off passes (I guess neither wanted to throw any picks).
12. Marcus Washington looks like he is going to be a beast.....he is fast as hell. He dropped back into coverage on this one play and looked more like a big safety when he almost picked one off.
13. Mike Barrow seemed to be on his toes and is definately faster than Trotter. I would have liked to have seen some serious hitting though.
14. Considering how quickly the season is approaching, I think it's better to risk some injuries at this point by engaging in some tackling drills than to risk looking as bad as we did last year with out tackling.
15. Arrington was getting a lot of penetration; he could have killed Brunell on a couples of plays. I doubt that he will completely satisfy our pass-rushing needs, but I wouldn't be surprised to see him get 10-15 sacks this year. It's his first year back at weakside since his PSU days and based on what I saw at practice, he could turn into a super-monster.
16. I'm pissed that the 'Skins cut S Dernard Wilson (a former Terp) after he broke his leg last week. Whether he would have made the squad or not, it's messed up that he is unemployed with a broken leg and he's a home-grown talent.
17. The catch that Darnerien made that Redskins.com says brought the most cheers was sweet. He leaped up into the air and caught the ball with two defensive players right on him. Yeah he ran it back for a TD, but every offensive player ran one back for a TD. The offensive players were told to keep running until they got to the endzone (and defensive players were not supposed to try to stop them after initial contact). It's too bad McCants is going to be our 4th wideout; it's going to be Coles, Gardner, Thrash, McCants, Jacobs, Russell. At some point however, I wouldn't be surprised to see Thrash beat Gardner for the #2 spot (yes, I said Thrash).
*Sorry everybody, I didn't get pics.
1. It was so frickin hot, every player earned their combat pay that day.
2. I thought there were 10,000 people there (Redskins.com is reporting that 5,000 showed for the am practice and another 5,000 showed for the pm practice).
3. The practice was MUCH shorter than I expected.
4. It was nice to see Chad Morton return a punt for a touchdown when I first came into camp. He is even faster in person than he looks on TV and I can see why he is such a return threat.
5. Chris Cooley isn't as big as I expected him to be.
6. James Thrash and Laveranues Coles have amazingly quick feet and if Coles' toe is bothering him, I couldn't tell one bit. I have never seen anyone juke left, right, left, right, and then zoom downfield as quickly as he does.
8. Clinton Portis made a few very nice moves. He looks like a slightly bigger Laveranues Coles in the backfield; if you blink, you're going to miss some moves that will make you ohh and ahhhh and want to laugh at how stupid he can make defensive players look. It is going to be fun watching him.
9. Tupa was booming a few punts yesterday, I didn't see one shank.
10. Special teams were practicing like crazy. Special teams were out there
80% of the time running drills. I saw 7-7 drills for about 30 minutes.
11. Brunell and Ramsey both have cannons for arms. Brunell threw a pass so hard to Clinton Portis, I was expecting Portis' hands to come off.
Brunell looked pretty good out there (not as much rust as Ramsey). It's funny, Brunell has got great touch but he couldn't throw as nice a deep ball as Ramsey. Ramsey was throwing nice deep balls, but wasn't throwing the greatest dump-off passes.
Also, Ramsey seemed to be holding onto the ball a bit too long.
Both QBs were throwing a disproportionate number of dump-off passes (I guess neither wanted to throw any picks).
12. Marcus Washington looks like he is going to be a beast.....he is fast as hell. He dropped back into coverage on this one play and looked more like a big safety when he almost picked one off.
13. Mike Barrow seemed to be on his toes and is definately faster than Trotter. I would have liked to have seen some serious hitting though.
14. Considering how quickly the season is approaching, I think it's better to risk some injuries at this point by engaging in some tackling drills than to risk looking as bad as we did last year with out tackling.
15. Arrington was getting a lot of penetration; he could have killed Brunell on a couples of plays. I doubt that he will completely satisfy our pass-rushing needs, but I wouldn't be surprised to see him get 10-15 sacks this year. It's his first year back at weakside since his PSU days and based on what I saw at practice, he could turn into a super-monster.
16. I'm pissed that the 'Skins cut S Dernard Wilson (a former Terp) after he broke his leg last week. Whether he would have made the squad or not, it's messed up that he is unemployed with a broken leg and he's a home-grown talent.
17. The catch that Darnerien made that Redskins.com says brought the most cheers was sweet. He leaped up into the air and caught the ball with two defensive players right on him. Yeah he ran it back for a TD, but every offensive player ran one back for a TD. The offensive players were told to keep running until they got to the endzone (and defensive players were not supposed to try to stop them after initial contact). It's too bad McCants is going to be our 4th wideout; it's going to be Coles, Gardner, Thrash, McCants, Jacobs, Russell. At some point however, I wouldn't be surprised to see Thrash beat Gardner for the #2 spot (yes, I said Thrash).
*Sorry everybody, I didn't get pics.