Something Positive To Take From Tonight...

[skinsguy]

.....Skinsguy is back for your posting enjoyment and I'll be here with you guys throughout the entire season and through the Super Bowl! Love ya guys! Go 'Skins!

[MTK]

The one positive from tonight, no injuries to any of our starting five offensive lineman.

Other than that, let's put this one in the rearview real quick and move on to next week.

[Sheriff Gonna Getcha]

I honestly didn't think the game was that bad. The first-teamers had one bad play. Other than the play in which Brunell and Lloyd had a miscommunication which resulted in an interception and Portis' injury, I think the first-team offense looked okay. The first-team defense looked awesome.

Basically, our back-ups got totally outclassed by the Bengals back-ups. The second and third team offense linemen were God awful in run-blocking. While that makes me nervous about our depth, I'm not totally discouraged.

[SmootSmack]

I agree with SGG. I also think the Bengals added some hot fudge to the usual vanilla offenses and defense we see in the preseason and that threw the Skins off.

Overall though, I'm not freaking out. The important game will be in two weeks when the starters will play the majority of the game against New England. They don't need to win that game, just look sharp

[mooby]

Originally Posted by Sheriff Gonna Getcha

I honestly didn't think the game was that bad. The first-teamers had one bad play. Other than the play in which Brunell and Lloyd had a miscommunication which resulted in an interception and Portis' injury, I think the first-team offense looked okay. The first-team defense looked awesome.

Basically, our back-ups got totally outclassed by the Bengals back-ups. The second and third team offense linemen were God awful in run-blocking. While that makes me nervous about our depth, I'm not totally discouraged.

I agree with you SGG. Our depth needs to improve though. And i was impressed with that catch Lloyd made early on. Where have you been lately SGG?

[SKINSnCANES]

Originally Posted by TAFKAS

I agree with SGG. I also think the Bengals added some hot fudge to the usual vanilla offenses and defense we see in the preseason and that threw the Skins off.

Overall though, I'm not freaking out. The important game will be in two weeks when the starters will play the majority of the game against New England. They don't need to win that game, just look sharp

Thats a good team to start testing your starters against. Portis wont play, but if Betts is in we should be able to run most of our offense

[steveo395]

well next week we'll be able to kill the jets and pick off ramsey a couple times

[SmootSmack]

We had to suspend SGG for a few months for violating our substance abuse policy....he wasn't abusing any substances, and as you know that's against our policy.

[offiss]

Here's the breakdown, I wouldn't worry to much about the outcome, starters play the games in the regular season, Brunell will be fine but he needs to play more in the pre-season to start to develope continuity with all the new players as well as a new offense before we kick off the season, Collins you can tell is really not anything other than a future coach who could never play the position, which means Campbell needs all the snaps he can get, we need to ware him out in the pre-season with repetition to get him comfortable and confident on this level, there is no way I want Collins first off the bench.

Our backup O-linemen are horrible!

I think we have a real player in Mcintosh.

Espy is going to supplant Jacobs you can just see it coming.

Dougherty is easily fooled out there chalk it up to lack of experience, shows good closing speed though.

Portis's comments after the game where interseting, kind of like he was sending a message to the coaches about playing him in the first pre-season game, he wasen't to happy about it.

Overall our second string O-line is so bad it's tough to evaluate the rest of the offensive players, but I am not cutting Collins any slack in that deptartment, theres a reason he's been riding the bench his entire career.

Our defense I believe is going to be top 3 this year, yes cincci completed some passes but remember Williams likes to put his guys in vulnarable type of coverages to see how they react, he evaluates through failure of worst case scenerio coverages and then picks the guys who find away to rise above [what I would call] handicap coverage schemes. He did it 2 years ago when we were all worried about our ability to stop people, but opening game it was a whole nother story.

[SmootSmack]

Originally Posted by offiss

Here's the breakdown, I wouldn't worry to much about the outcome, starters play the games in the regular season, Brunell will be fine but he needs to play more in the pre-season to start to develope continuity with all the new players as well as a new offense before we kick off the season, Collins you can tell is really not anything other than a future coach who could never play the position, which means Campbell needs all the snaps he can get, we need to ware him out in the pre-season with repetition to get him comfortable and confident on this level, there is no way I want Collins first off the bench.

Our backup O-linemen are horrible!

I think we have a real player in Mcintosh.

Espy is going to supplant Jacobs you can just see it coming.

Dougherty is easily fooled out there chalk it up to lack of experience, shows good closing speed though.

Portis's comments after the game where interseting, kind of like he was sending a message to the coaches about playing him in the first pre-season game, he wasen't to happy about it.

Overall our second string O-line is so bad it's tough to evaluate the rest of the offensive players, but I am not cutting Collins any slack in that deptartment, theres a reason he's been riding the bench his entire career.

Our defense I believe is going to top 3 this year, yes cincci completed some passes but remember Williams likes to put his guys in vulnarable type of coverages to see how they react, he evaluates through failure of worst case scenerio coverages and then picks the guys who find away to rise above [what I would call] handicap coverage schemes. He did it 2 years ago when we were all worried about our ability to stop people, but opening game it was a whole nother story.

I think you're probably reading too much into Portis' comments. But otherwise, I...I....I agree with you about just about everything else! So I guess the apocalypse is upon us then.

Good point about Williams.

As for Espy, he looked good. But let's not forget about Patten

[SmootSmack]

I liked what I saw from Manuel White

[Beemnseven]

I don't take tonight's performance as any indication of what the season will look like, but you can certainly judge individual performances. Two that immediately standout:

Kenny Wright. He got toasted more than I would have liked tonight. He's supposed to be an improvement over Walt Harris. If that's the best we have at the 3rd corner position, well ... Let's just hope he, like the rest of the team, had a bad night and that's all there is to it.

Todd Collins. He did a masterful job at proving why he's a career backup and hasn't had any significant playing time for the last 8 years. There's no way in Hades he remains the #2 QB behind Brunell.

[offiss]

Originally Posted by TAFKAS

I think you're probably reading too much into Portis' comments. But otherwise, I...I....I agree with you about just about everything else! So I guess the apocalypse is upon us then.

Good point about Williams.

As for Espy, he looked good. But let's not forget about Patten

I actaully did forget about him my bad.

I also liked what I saw from White as well reminded me a bit of Sellars.

[saden1]

The Good:
* Nice first few plays (except for the INT and the injury to Portis).
* Espy - he is good and he has heart. At worst he should make the practice squad.
* Jason Campbell - played really well with a crappy line and not so hot running back. Nice touch on the ball and spiral.
* 1'st team Defense - No need to elaborate, you so those monsters.

The Bad
* Special team play was so so.
* Our backups are bad, maybe even pretty bad.

The Ugly
* Todd Collins - Man, he stinks. No seriously, is this guy a QB in the NFL? For someone who is suppose to know the offense he played pretty awful. I shudder at the though of him being our #2. I am in favor of elevating Campbell to #2.

p.s. I'm disapointed we didn't get to see Lumsden play.

[dgack]

-- Our first team defense held Cincy's first team (yeah yeah, sans Palmer, whatever) to *minus 18 yards* of total offense. That bodes well for us.

-- Thought McCune looked very sharp. Much better than Rocky did. What a difference a year of NFL conditioning and experience makes?

-- As we've all been hoping for, Campbell looks like the man. Collins might have lost his backup job tonight.

-- For as bad as the score looked, the team stats were nearly identical... they ended up with 5 more minutes of possession and 50 yards more of offense. Considering the point swing we'd get back if Collins never takes the field, I think I can live with that

-- Mike Espy should definitely make the team. I like his work ethic and the way he plays hard out there. I'm tired of hearing about how good Jacobs is and then watching him bone it.

-- That Lloyd grab was silly. I got all tingly when I saw that. The INT was probably the result of Brandon running the wrong route, a casualty of a 700 page playbook, I guess. But considering how long we endured Ol' 50-50 and Lavernues and Shirley, having guys who can make catches like that alongside Santana and Randle El is extremely exciting.