Game Notes: Pre Season Game 1

[NateDawg122]

My little $0.02 report:

Stock up-

Nelson Spruce: not sure how much of the offense will be that Edelman stuff, but looks like he can deliver it consistently, something the WR corps has lacked.

Tyler Higbee: got open and made all the catches, but a little disappointing everything was so near the line of scrimmage. Have to wait to see how he can attack down the seam.

Starting OL: no huge let downs, no holding, no stupid penalties (except the b.s. Barnes thing). Keenum made them look worse by abandoning the pocket on that ill-advised 3rd down scramble. Barnes and Brown were a little shaky but mostly it was a good start. The choice to move Saffold and start Wichmann looks correct, Saffold was fine and Wichmann opened holes in the run game, got downfield on screen. Showed much better than Jamon Brown who looked lost at times.

Backup OTs not named Isaiah: Williams was pretty good, Donnal very good. No Battle sighting.

Backup G/C: Folkerts had a surprisingly good showing at LG, Kush followed up his Hard Knocks stardom by having crisp snaps and overall good play at C, a little shaky at G. Rhaney did well too, especially considering he had Arkin next to him.

Aaron Green: lived up to his hype, made plays in the open field. All the backup RBs looked just fine.

TE/FB blocking: when Harkey's 100% with no nagging injuries at the start of the year, he's great. Was also surprised by J.Cunningham finally living up to his billing actually getting some inline push. Laskey also had nice lead blocks.

Ian Seau: provided a nice spark that helped turn the game around, drew a holding flag, but also didn't finish off the sack for that broken big play. Made up for it with another sack.

Jeff Fisher: conspicuously absent were all the mental farts and stupid penalties that have plagued this team. Perhaps the 7-9 speech is more than lip service finally and mental discipline is here.

Stock down-

Starting DL: got stymied by the vaunted Cowboys OL but yes preseason and they'll be fine. Smart to sit Quinn, still wondering why AD was playing at all.

DT rotation: Coples had one amazing play, but it didn't outweigh his many more terrible snaps. He's a gap shooter with high risk, high reward. Easely is also a gap shooter but more consistent. Maybe combined they are one Nick Fairley but neither was consistently stout, the Cowboys ran up the gut at will.

DE rotation: Longacre had great run support. Westbrooks got a sack but otherwise looked a bit slow off the ball and was bad against the run. Nobody showing anything too special with Quinn on the bench except for Seau. Need to let him work against some better competition to see if it's real.

All CBs: Dak Prescott attacked downfield at will. Dak.. Prescott.. Not only did every CB get torched but the return of the 10-yard cushion was on display, the worst of all worlds. Hill might have been the only one that wasn't awful thanks to sure tackling.

Coty Sensabaugh: all CBs bad, but have to single him out for his annoying "incomplete" gesticulation act to the ref afterwards every time he got beat.

Mo Alexander: provided some run support but gave up a big gainer in coverage (in his defense, so did everybody). He didn't really do anything to allay the concern he's more a SS than a FS.

WRs: didn't do anything downfield, lots of horrible drops.

Alex Ogletree: had mixed results, got blown out of the middle at times but had a nice read & stuff play too. Didn't do much to allay the concerns about his potential weaknesses causing inconsistency in the middle.

Chase Reynolds: yes there were 3 penalties on that opening kick return, but he was the one guy that wasn't touched, and got completely juked and whiffed. Also blew the punt coverage touchback. Shouldn't happen if he's on the roster as the ST specialist.

Garrett Reynolds: got suckered out of position by the blitz that caused the Goff INT. The younger kids looked much better.

Mike Groh: yeesh, somehow I don't think Adam Gase taught him to call absolutely nothing downfield. With all due respect to Hope Solo, that was a cowardly display of wuss ball of a passing game. Hopefully it was just a preseason "vanilla" plan.

Do you really think Groh is going to open up the play book for the 1sr preseason game? Everything you're going to see, offense and defense, is going to be pretty vanilla.

 

[Fatbot]

Do you really think Groh is going to open up the play book for the 1sr preseason game? Everything you're going to see, offense and defense, is going to be pretty vanilla.

You can be vanilla and still throw the ball more than 3 inches down the field. Dallas didn't do anything crazy in their offense, for example, but they still attacked down the field.

 

[StealYoGurley]

Mo Alexander: provided some run support but gave up a big gainer in coverage (in his defense, so did everybody). He didn't really do anything to allay the concern he's more a SS than a FS.

I don't think he gave up a big play nothing went over the top of him and thats the FS job in our scheme. There was a big play in front of him but that was more on the underneath zone coverage

Coty Sensabaugh: all CBs bad, but have to single him out for his annoying "incomplete" gesticulation act to the ref afterwards every time he got beat.

CBs coverage wasn't bad, but they didn't find the ball. Sensabaugh had decent coverage on Dez but didn't have the size or physicality to out muscle him when he went up for the ball.

Mike Groh: yeesh, somehow I don't think Adam Gase taught him to call absolutely nothing downfield. With all due respect to Hope Solo, that was a cowardly display of wuss ball of a passing game. Hopefully it was just a preseason "vanilla" plan.

Groh doesn't call the plays, Boras does. I don't know if the checkdowns were in the gameplan or if the QBs were just throwing short because Goff was certainly looking down the field and throwing deep. Rams also introduced alot of run pass option which are inherently short passes. Finally with your second and third string line you don't want to get your QBs killed so short passing definitely helps.

 

[Elmgrovegnome]

Lol that was funny but he did get 4 yards.. I thought his delivery was quick and on time accurate and he showed he could read a basic defense and recognize the blitz.

It is puzzling that the Rams never seemed to want to give him a chance. I hope he develops into a good NFL QB and nets the Rams a first or second round pick since they don't want to start him. Thing is, for him to show off his skills the QBs above him would have to get injured...yikes.

 

[NateDawg122]

You can be vanilla and still throw the ball more than 3 inches down the field. Dallas didn't do anything crazy in their offense, for example, but they still attacked down the field.

I think that was more the QBs than anything. Goff took 2 shots downfield, 1 that was overthrown and the other was that strike to Cooper. Mannion and Keenum seemed content to just throw it short every play.