ckparrothead
Premium Member
Thought I'd get this out to you guys out here in the main forum too. Go ahead, be merciless...I know you will anyway, lol. 
A little background. I was at this game in Tampa. One of the higher ups at my firm came by Friday afternoon and unloaded 50 yard line row T tickets on me for the steep price of nothin, so I picked up and hit the stadium with my girlfriend to watch the boys play live. I was out most of Saturday night, busy pretty much all of Sunday, so I couldn't really get to the DVR recording until tonight.
1. Bennie Anderson. Bennie had about as bad a start to the game as is possible without blowing out a knee or something. PhinKev has a good analysis of the first few drives. I recorded a failing grade for Bennie on 6 of his first 7 plays of the game, including the false starts. Anderson could not handle the stunting DL, he failes to recognize a stunt from Booger on one play, on another he just fails to man up on Spires, and on another play he singles Booger and gets bulled back for the sack. One of the false starts was clearly on him, another might have been Hadnot's fault, or Anderson's moving may have simply triggered a waterfall of movement (my DVR frame-by-frame still shows him the first to move on both plays). I'm not trying to pick on Bennie just because I originally predicted he would suck. If I was out to get guys just because of my predictions, I would not have had kind words to say about Bennie after the Jax game...but I did, and I admitted after that game I may have to eat my words about Bennie being a tub of goo. Against the Bucs, he looked like the tub of goo I originally thought he'd be, it is that simple. After the first two drives Bennie started to settle down but his miscues showed up here and there in the 2nd quarter as well.
2. The Other Guys Part 1. Vernon Carey was clearly struggling with the speed of the Tampa defense, but he did not have outright failures like Bennie Anderson did. L.J. Shelton was also struggling a little bit with that speed at various points, and both Shelton and Carey get a C- for their job in the first part of the game. Jeno James continually surprises me how smart and aware he is. He usually does a good job, and even faced with the stellar Booger McFarland, he generally kept Booger out of plays. Hadnot had a possible snap gaffe, widely advertised at this point, but otherwise did his job without quite the positive distinction of James. For the first part of the game, James was clearly the best OL, followed by Hadnot by default, followed by Shelton and Carey, with Anderson trailing way behind on this one. Here's a statement that should make you think. Qualitatively, the only difference between last week's offensive line and this week's offensive line was Bennie Anderson's performance. Had he been doing well out there, pockets were forming (not perfect pockets, but as well as can be hoped considering what we pay our OL), Ronnie had some room to run, and possibly one false start would have happened even without Bennie. The OL wasn't perfect against Jax, but they were decent. Without Bennie's gaffes, they would have been decent yet again.
3. Ronnie on the Replay. If you haven't watched replay a few times of the move Ronnie Brown made on the two defenders on that little 3rd and a lightyear garbage dump-off on the first drive, please do so. It's one of the little things that never get noticed when people decide to nitpick him for not finding what looks to us couch potatoes as the most obvious hole in the world that could have netted him maybe 2 more yards. The deke he put on the defenders ended with them both falling to their chests grasping at nothing but air, and gained him as many as 11 more yards than a lesser player would have gotten. I realize it is hard to appreciate the move given the camera angle, because depths are hard to see, but at the stadium watching the replay on the big screens I got a more vertical shot of the move and I have to say it was incredible. Also of note on the play was a rather devastating flying full speed block that Welker ran back to the play and made on a third defender that was going to try and tackle Ronnie. I don't think the third defender had much of a shot at Ronnie as Ronnie had already made his angle somewhat disappear (as he tends to do) but that defender certainly had to be smarting. Give credit to Tampa's swarming D though, even with 3 defenders in the dust they had 3 more with good enough angles to ensure a first down was not going to happen.
4. Defensive Wizardry. If you thought some offensive formations were odd, how about 3-2 dime packages with Zach Thomas and David Bowens as the two linebackers backed up into coverage. Does anyone remember when I was saying that perhaps the other 3-4 pass rushing OLB we were missing when we didn't sign Arrington and didn't draft Lawson was David Bowens? Two weeks in a row now I see him used much more significantly as a LB (in some true LB formations, with true LB duties) rather than with his hand on the ground. I think he's becoming even more of a LB than Jason Taylor. Watch for that.
5. Offensive Line Part 2. After the first two drives, Bennie decided to settle down a bit and did a much better job. We had a funky offensive line formation with an overloaded right side on the first play of the third drive, and Bennie did extremely well on the play. Had it not been such a new and funky formation, Ronnie might have known to cut it to the wide open left side instead of powering it to the strength of the formation. On the Barrett Ruud sack/intentional grounding, I guess I've heard that Ronnie had a tough time with Torrie Cox but I don't see it. He had him stood up, standing still and even ripped his helmet off. This wasn't a particularly fancy scheme, it was a simple nickel corner blitz and should have been read by Daunte. Barrett Ruud simply did what a lot of Mike LBs would do on a nickel blitz when you see the OL over-commit...he green dog blitzed. The failure in protection was Shelton's but not for the nickel CB. He has no responsibility for the nickel CB, that needs to be picked up by Ronnie, and read by Daunte. However, Shelton over-committed to a well-handled double team on Jeno's man and let Ruud skate right by him on the green dog blitz, and to me this represents a failure in zone protection. The next play on that drive was good blocking for a screen pass, it just so happens that 11 yards isn't enough to convert 3rd and 21. Mularkey called the play knowing it wouldn't be successful.
6. Great coverage. One thing you notice is that we had some pretty great coverage out there on D. Yeah they let up a pass here and there but for the most part Simms was afflicted, and NOT necessarily by our front line pressure. Big Daddy's first sack was a pure coverage sack. Renaldo Hill stood out in coverage. Andre Goodman had another great outing. Will Allen did better this time around, he actually got interfered with on one catch by Mike Clayton but the refs didn't call the ticky-tack (they must not do that unless it's a super bowl). Jason Allen had the deep middle blanketed. Yeremiah Bell got violated on a safety blitz, drawing the hold on Mahan. Good night for the secondary starters.
7. Daddy Mack Truck Effect. Not taking anything away from Big Daddy, he was pretty impressive for not having practiced much with us...but I'm always amazed how good the really big men are able to look in Saban's defensive line scheme. This is a D in which Truck Traylor, the widest guy you've ever seen, looks like a pretty durn good pass rusher. A defense where Big Daddy, who accumulated 1.5 sacks during 16 games of 2004, gets 1.5 sacks in one night...in partial duty. Is it a coincidence Fred Evans is looking good at the spot? Is it much of a coincidence that Manny Wright looked dominant at the spot during the few games he played in 2005? Perhaps we should revise our valuations on both Evans and Wright, and simply chalk it up to a position that was tailor-made for their tall, heavy, powerful, exposive frames.
8. Offensive Line Part 3. Why so detailed on the OL? Because that seems to be what people want. Can't count the number of requests I've had to detail the OL. So here I am. On the fourth, finally successful, drive of the game, the OL continued improvement they began on the third drive. It started with a nice run by Ronnie on a draw that was MADE by Rex Hadnot's two-successive blocks, one a chip on Anderson's man, another a cut on the LB. He claimed distinction while others merely did their jobs. On the nice deep pass play to Booker (I remember seeing the Cover 1 look the D was giving at the stadium and saying, they're gonna throw it deeeeep on this one), the OL works extremely well in their zone schemes to form a tight pocket. The next few run plays have real text book blocking, truth be told. I'm still not sure I understand the tripping call on Shelton but I do understand the stupid false start on Shelton. Aside from those two penalties I'm not sure I found a single failing grade on any play of the fourth drive, except where Darian failed to divert course and block Blue Adams off the edge on a red zone run play. The OL as a whole drew excellent distinction for incredible blocking on the touchdown run. The middle three fired out and really paved road to the left and Carey had to make a tough angle block on a DT to keep him out of the play and he did it with excellent distinction.
9. Darian Barnes over Fred Beasley. At this point I think Darian is just working harder, making tougher blocks, and now the past two weeks he has even begun making plays with the ball in his hands. He reminds me of another guy who played in this game and who has had a decent NFL care...Jerrell Sowell. I'm a little disappointed in Beasley I think he really isn't what he use to be.
10. Latest Token Joey Update. Seems the people that disagree with me on Joey don't really want to hear what I'm saying on him no matter how fair-minded I think I am being. This week he was pretty much the same QB to me as he was last week. I'll start off saying something positive about Joey, and that is that he's as good in the 2 minute situations as he was in college. That's part of who he is. On the other hand, I have some specific keys on Joey, and I refuse to believe he is a different player than he was in Detroit, or at Oregon, until he starts changing those keys. Last week, 53% completion with 5.2 ypa. This week 53% completion with 5.4 ypa. The difference betwen Joey and Daunte is palpable. Daunte takes the same offensive calls and goes 78% for 9.6 ypa, gets a touchdown on a drive in which he completed 4 of 4 passes for 54 yards. What have I always said about Joey? He has a chance to be a decent backup, but those looking for him to be a decent starter better realize that as a starter he's no better than Gus Frerotte, and might even be a bit worse. If you're fine with that, then you should be fine with me. Everyone keeps saying, oh but what about the drops, oh but what about this or that. But, whatever happened to the "horrible" Detroit situation and how he'd be given "every opportunity" to succeed in Miami? Now all the sudden he gets the excuses in Miami too? When a QB keeps throwing the ball high or behind his players, he's going to have some drops, it happens. I don't see people talking about the dropped interception opportunities last week and this week. Forgive me if I'm much more comfortable with the guy on our roster that tends to make other teammates look good, rather than the guy that tends to make other teammates look bad.
11. Gramma-ma Roth. Listen, I've been as bullish on Matt Roth as anyone else in the past. I was probably the only one at mid-season to stand up and say that Matt Roth really isn't playing any worse than Channing Crowder, he has just not had as many opportunities. Channing pulled away a bit toward the end of 2005, but I was yet again bullish on how Matt improved his conditioning and muscle mass, also his confidence. But it's damn time to take the diapers off. I watched him last week go up against 2nd string OLs and not claim distinction as a pass rusher, now I watch him this week go up against 2nd string OLs and not claim distinction either. It's all up to him at this point, he has to stand up for himself and say, I am not another Chris Kelsay. I am better than that. I don't share a high opinion of Ty Warren but at this point, that may be the ideal Roth ends up striving toward, unless he turns it around. I'm not saying he can't, I'm saying he isn't. It's up to him.
12. Winborn Unleashed. Hard to assign blame on the Winborn cannon shot sack. It was like a play right out of NFL Blitz 2000. Bennie let the guy go right by him without even making an attempt to go after him, yet something tells me that Winborn's showing blitz was something Hadnot should have been making a LOS call about.
13. Sammy Unleashed. Real impressed with Sammy Morris in this game. He just looked way more athletic than I have seen him in a while. He was fast enough to get to the outside edge, had a good read on the holes, and that vertical leap for the TD was pretty spectacular (in the unnecessary but amazing way). Maybe we're not so bad off if Ronnie goes down (let's still hope it doesn't happen lol).
14. Hadnot Back to G?. I think we'd all been assuming Rex Hadnot was just going to be this great center for us but the truth is he looks physically limited out there by his lack of athleticism, and he is definitely suffering the growing pains you might expect a first-year NFL center to go through. I know he played the position in college but this is his first extensive experience in the pros here and he's struggling a little bit. If we find ourselves a top grade swing man in future off seasons I think we should stay disciplined and do what's best for the team, even if Joe Toledo does turn out to be RG of the future.
15. Rader not a Goat. When I originally saw the dropped touchdown I said to myself, that was tough. The ball was high, yet could have been caught, and after the beautiful catch he made on the sideline on another high ball, that high TD catch could have sealed Rader's spot on the team...but he didn't make that outstanding play. That's tough. Gotta feel for the real young unheralded guy. But if you really look, he did a lot of positive things out there, and he looks to be in the clear lead for the #3 TE spot. It's a play I'm sure he wants back, but I'm cautiously optimistic about him in general.
16. Hagan Finally Showed Up...All of Him. Including the hands. I'm calling it like it is, he doesn't have those suction cup hands like you want to see in a top flight WR. Not saying he doesn't get the job done because he clearly did in college and he will hopefully do so in the NFL, but again I have to INSIST that the hands he showed at the Senior Bowl and Combine were NOT a pure fluke-ish, Oronde Gadsden turned into James McKnight bad week. On a 3rd down catch he made on a low ball, that ball was not very well secured as he sank to the ground. He's lucky no part of the ball happened to touch the ground, or it could have been overruled in replay. Another possible catch he just didn't secure the ball. Am I saying his hands are horrible? No. But the problems do exist, and I know some people want to insist that there's no such thing as a Derek Hagan hands problem. Now also when I say all of Derek Hagan showed up, I do mean all of him...because he continues to look deadly fast getting off the line of scrimmage. That right there is a positive.
17. Jason Allen Unwrapped. For one thing, let's look at the positives. The dude has a knack for being around the ball on tackles. He's one of the people that swarm, when you have a D that swarms. That's a very good thing. Also, on the Deke Cooper interception, Allen jumped in front of the intended receiver and jumped like 10 feet in the air to try and get that ball himself. Had the ball not been overthrown by a mile, chances are decent that Allen could have had that INT himself. Also, I noted in the 3rd quarter when he started to play RCB, while I was at the game live in stadium, and so I made it a real point of emphasis to watch him play CB. On film, you just don't see CBs do their work, because they're always off camera. So, I do feel I have an advantage over the people that weren't in the game. On a play-by-play basis, he looked very natural as a corner, especially in man coverage. He looks a little more iffy in transition on zones, and he's always been a player that is very susceptible when peeking into the backfield. And, on the interception, that's exactly what he got caught doing. To me, live, as I watched him the entire play, it looked to me like he thought he was transitioning his WR off to deep safety coverage. I saw him do so on another zone coverage earlier, and his steps looked exactly like they did before, except this time around he saw that nobody was rotating onto his man so he made the attempt to catch up to the well-placed ball. Overall, I'm not concerned about it. Know what is just a little concerning? It's one thing if there's a highlight film out there of Ronnie Brown making you look a little silly physically, it's another thing if it's Carey Davis doing it. Yeah, Davis is 225 and he had a full head of steam and Allen got him low and got him on the ground (out of bounds)...but do you ever imagine Troy Polamalu getting stoned by a Carey Davis? I'm not saying it's a big concern at all, if anything it serves to show just how not concerned I am about Allen from this game, that such a little thing makes me worry more than the long TD.
18. What did I say about Fred Evans earlier? Forget what I said about the position being the source of his power. Fred's a monster of a different sort. If he belongs in company with Dan Wilkinson and Keith Traylor then he's cut from a pretty good cloth. Those guys have had good careers. What a competitor. Manny Who? Also Ben Ishola looks like he's got some potential. We've got a storm brewing among the DL, it will be tough to figure out who makes it...but I'm penciling Evans in as a roster player, and Ishola as a practice squad player.
19. Russell Pulled Up?? This one is confusing me. Russell got open on two deep pass plays on the same drive and was overthrown by You-Know-Who, but I'm hearing these accusations that Russell pulled up on one of the plays. I'm going to have to see some confirmation via a quote because what I see on the tape doesn't suggest anything of the sort. I hate to say people are seeing shadows on this one but I see no reason to be questioning Cliff Russell's heart on either of these plays.
20. Fred Gibson is our 5th WR. As things stand. He's too good to ignore. He's a better physical specimen than Cliff Russell yet he's doing the same things as him, and in the end that is what I believe will do it for Fred. He made good plays against good cover people in the first half, as opposed to making stellar plays against crappy cover guys last week. No doubt that when writers are alluding to our receiving phone calls about trading one of our WRs, Fred is probably the guy everyone is calling about. He's the 2005 fourth round draft pick that got unexpectedly cut for mental reasons before the 2005 season, then took his lumps for a full year on a Nick Saban practice squad. He's a valuable commodity now.
21. Anthony Alabi Does Well. I took a good look at him, he's every bit as athletic as advertised. Sometimes looks a little bit hesitant but that could just be him keeping his head on a swivel (a MUST in a zone blocking scheme...got that Bennie?). I didn't see many negative plays (there was one where he got overloaded by 3 rushers on the right side and he didn't do much to stop them on a run play) and that's about as much as you can ask until you see the guy up against top notch players. I dare say he looked the best of the 2nd string OLs...McIntosh included. Alabi looks good on the move, he's got good speed out pulling and he makes good reads out there. Like a lot of young OLs with good athletic ability, if you're going to get the best of him, it'll be by confusing him with an overload on his side.
22. Cleo Lemon Not Good. Was pretty disappointed in Cleo's showing during this game, both during the game live at the stadium and on tape review. He was not the same player he was a week ago when he got into a good rhythm with the offense. This time he was off-rhythm and unable to push through. He's certainly not going to give Joey Harrington any trouble playing like this. The pressure's on for a 3rd...you have to give the impression that you have good potential, or you're dead in the water.
A little background. I was at this game in Tampa. One of the higher ups at my firm came by Friday afternoon and unloaded 50 yard line row T tickets on me for the steep price of nothin, so I picked up and hit the stadium with my girlfriend to watch the boys play live. I was out most of Saturday night, busy pretty much all of Sunday, so I couldn't really get to the DVR recording until tonight.
1. Bennie Anderson. Bennie had about as bad a start to the game as is possible without blowing out a knee or something. PhinKev has a good analysis of the first few drives. I recorded a failing grade for Bennie on 6 of his first 7 plays of the game, including the false starts. Anderson could not handle the stunting DL, he failes to recognize a stunt from Booger on one play, on another he just fails to man up on Spires, and on another play he singles Booger and gets bulled back for the sack. One of the false starts was clearly on him, another might have been Hadnot's fault, or Anderson's moving may have simply triggered a waterfall of movement (my DVR frame-by-frame still shows him the first to move on both plays). I'm not trying to pick on Bennie just because I originally predicted he would suck. If I was out to get guys just because of my predictions, I would not have had kind words to say about Bennie after the Jax game...but I did, and I admitted after that game I may have to eat my words about Bennie being a tub of goo. Against the Bucs, he looked like the tub of goo I originally thought he'd be, it is that simple. After the first two drives Bennie started to settle down but his miscues showed up here and there in the 2nd quarter as well.
2. The Other Guys Part 1. Vernon Carey was clearly struggling with the speed of the Tampa defense, but he did not have outright failures like Bennie Anderson did. L.J. Shelton was also struggling a little bit with that speed at various points, and both Shelton and Carey get a C- for their job in the first part of the game. Jeno James continually surprises me how smart and aware he is. He usually does a good job, and even faced with the stellar Booger McFarland, he generally kept Booger out of plays. Hadnot had a possible snap gaffe, widely advertised at this point, but otherwise did his job without quite the positive distinction of James. For the first part of the game, James was clearly the best OL, followed by Hadnot by default, followed by Shelton and Carey, with Anderson trailing way behind on this one. Here's a statement that should make you think. Qualitatively, the only difference between last week's offensive line and this week's offensive line was Bennie Anderson's performance. Had he been doing well out there, pockets were forming (not perfect pockets, but as well as can be hoped considering what we pay our OL), Ronnie had some room to run, and possibly one false start would have happened even without Bennie. The OL wasn't perfect against Jax, but they were decent. Without Bennie's gaffes, they would have been decent yet again.
3. Ronnie on the Replay. If you haven't watched replay a few times of the move Ronnie Brown made on the two defenders on that little 3rd and a lightyear garbage dump-off on the first drive, please do so. It's one of the little things that never get noticed when people decide to nitpick him for not finding what looks to us couch potatoes as the most obvious hole in the world that could have netted him maybe 2 more yards. The deke he put on the defenders ended with them both falling to their chests grasping at nothing but air, and gained him as many as 11 more yards than a lesser player would have gotten. I realize it is hard to appreciate the move given the camera angle, because depths are hard to see, but at the stadium watching the replay on the big screens I got a more vertical shot of the move and I have to say it was incredible. Also of note on the play was a rather devastating flying full speed block that Welker ran back to the play and made on a third defender that was going to try and tackle Ronnie. I don't think the third defender had much of a shot at Ronnie as Ronnie had already made his angle somewhat disappear (as he tends to do) but that defender certainly had to be smarting. Give credit to Tampa's swarming D though, even with 3 defenders in the dust they had 3 more with good enough angles to ensure a first down was not going to happen.
4. Defensive Wizardry. If you thought some offensive formations were odd, how about 3-2 dime packages with Zach Thomas and David Bowens as the two linebackers backed up into coverage. Does anyone remember when I was saying that perhaps the other 3-4 pass rushing OLB we were missing when we didn't sign Arrington and didn't draft Lawson was David Bowens? Two weeks in a row now I see him used much more significantly as a LB (in some true LB formations, with true LB duties) rather than with his hand on the ground. I think he's becoming even more of a LB than Jason Taylor. Watch for that.
5. Offensive Line Part 2. After the first two drives, Bennie decided to settle down a bit and did a much better job. We had a funky offensive line formation with an overloaded right side on the first play of the third drive, and Bennie did extremely well on the play. Had it not been such a new and funky formation, Ronnie might have known to cut it to the wide open left side instead of powering it to the strength of the formation. On the Barrett Ruud sack/intentional grounding, I guess I've heard that Ronnie had a tough time with Torrie Cox but I don't see it. He had him stood up, standing still and even ripped his helmet off. This wasn't a particularly fancy scheme, it was a simple nickel corner blitz and should have been read by Daunte. Barrett Ruud simply did what a lot of Mike LBs would do on a nickel blitz when you see the OL over-commit...he green dog blitzed. The failure in protection was Shelton's but not for the nickel CB. He has no responsibility for the nickel CB, that needs to be picked up by Ronnie, and read by Daunte. However, Shelton over-committed to a well-handled double team on Jeno's man and let Ruud skate right by him on the green dog blitz, and to me this represents a failure in zone protection. The next play on that drive was good blocking for a screen pass, it just so happens that 11 yards isn't enough to convert 3rd and 21. Mularkey called the play knowing it wouldn't be successful.
6. Great coverage. One thing you notice is that we had some pretty great coverage out there on D. Yeah they let up a pass here and there but for the most part Simms was afflicted, and NOT necessarily by our front line pressure. Big Daddy's first sack was a pure coverage sack. Renaldo Hill stood out in coverage. Andre Goodman had another great outing. Will Allen did better this time around, he actually got interfered with on one catch by Mike Clayton but the refs didn't call the ticky-tack (they must not do that unless it's a super bowl). Jason Allen had the deep middle blanketed. Yeremiah Bell got violated on a safety blitz, drawing the hold on Mahan. Good night for the secondary starters.
7. Daddy Mack Truck Effect. Not taking anything away from Big Daddy, he was pretty impressive for not having practiced much with us...but I'm always amazed how good the really big men are able to look in Saban's defensive line scheme. This is a D in which Truck Traylor, the widest guy you've ever seen, looks like a pretty durn good pass rusher. A defense where Big Daddy, who accumulated 1.5 sacks during 16 games of 2004, gets 1.5 sacks in one night...in partial duty. Is it a coincidence Fred Evans is looking good at the spot? Is it much of a coincidence that Manny Wright looked dominant at the spot during the few games he played in 2005? Perhaps we should revise our valuations on both Evans and Wright, and simply chalk it up to a position that was tailor-made for their tall, heavy, powerful, exposive frames.
8. Offensive Line Part 3. Why so detailed on the OL? Because that seems to be what people want. Can't count the number of requests I've had to detail the OL. So here I am. On the fourth, finally successful, drive of the game, the OL continued improvement they began on the third drive. It started with a nice run by Ronnie on a draw that was MADE by Rex Hadnot's two-successive blocks, one a chip on Anderson's man, another a cut on the LB. He claimed distinction while others merely did their jobs. On the nice deep pass play to Booker (I remember seeing the Cover 1 look the D was giving at the stadium and saying, they're gonna throw it deeeeep on this one), the OL works extremely well in their zone schemes to form a tight pocket. The next few run plays have real text book blocking, truth be told. I'm still not sure I understand the tripping call on Shelton but I do understand the stupid false start on Shelton. Aside from those two penalties I'm not sure I found a single failing grade on any play of the fourth drive, except where Darian failed to divert course and block Blue Adams off the edge on a red zone run play. The OL as a whole drew excellent distinction for incredible blocking on the touchdown run. The middle three fired out and really paved road to the left and Carey had to make a tough angle block on a DT to keep him out of the play and he did it with excellent distinction.
9. Darian Barnes over Fred Beasley. At this point I think Darian is just working harder, making tougher blocks, and now the past two weeks he has even begun making plays with the ball in his hands. He reminds me of another guy who played in this game and who has had a decent NFL care...Jerrell Sowell. I'm a little disappointed in Beasley I think he really isn't what he use to be.
10. Latest Token Joey Update. Seems the people that disagree with me on Joey don't really want to hear what I'm saying on him no matter how fair-minded I think I am being. This week he was pretty much the same QB to me as he was last week. I'll start off saying something positive about Joey, and that is that he's as good in the 2 minute situations as he was in college. That's part of who he is. On the other hand, I have some specific keys on Joey, and I refuse to believe he is a different player than he was in Detroit, or at Oregon, until he starts changing those keys. Last week, 53% completion with 5.2 ypa. This week 53% completion with 5.4 ypa. The difference betwen Joey and Daunte is palpable. Daunte takes the same offensive calls and goes 78% for 9.6 ypa, gets a touchdown on a drive in which he completed 4 of 4 passes for 54 yards. What have I always said about Joey? He has a chance to be a decent backup, but those looking for him to be a decent starter better realize that as a starter he's no better than Gus Frerotte, and might even be a bit worse. If you're fine with that, then you should be fine with me. Everyone keeps saying, oh but what about the drops, oh but what about this or that. But, whatever happened to the "horrible" Detroit situation and how he'd be given "every opportunity" to succeed in Miami? Now all the sudden he gets the excuses in Miami too? When a QB keeps throwing the ball high or behind his players, he's going to have some drops, it happens. I don't see people talking about the dropped interception opportunities last week and this week. Forgive me if I'm much more comfortable with the guy on our roster that tends to make other teammates look good, rather than the guy that tends to make other teammates look bad.
11. Gramma-ma Roth. Listen, I've been as bullish on Matt Roth as anyone else in the past. I was probably the only one at mid-season to stand up and say that Matt Roth really isn't playing any worse than Channing Crowder, he has just not had as many opportunities. Channing pulled away a bit toward the end of 2005, but I was yet again bullish on how Matt improved his conditioning and muscle mass, also his confidence. But it's damn time to take the diapers off. I watched him last week go up against 2nd string OLs and not claim distinction as a pass rusher, now I watch him this week go up against 2nd string OLs and not claim distinction either. It's all up to him at this point, he has to stand up for himself and say, I am not another Chris Kelsay. I am better than that. I don't share a high opinion of Ty Warren but at this point, that may be the ideal Roth ends up striving toward, unless he turns it around. I'm not saying he can't, I'm saying he isn't. It's up to him.
12. Winborn Unleashed. Hard to assign blame on the Winborn cannon shot sack. It was like a play right out of NFL Blitz 2000. Bennie let the guy go right by him without even making an attempt to go after him, yet something tells me that Winborn's showing blitz was something Hadnot should have been making a LOS call about.
13. Sammy Unleashed. Real impressed with Sammy Morris in this game. He just looked way more athletic than I have seen him in a while. He was fast enough to get to the outside edge, had a good read on the holes, and that vertical leap for the TD was pretty spectacular (in the unnecessary but amazing way). Maybe we're not so bad off if Ronnie goes down (let's still hope it doesn't happen lol).
14. Hadnot Back to G?. I think we'd all been assuming Rex Hadnot was just going to be this great center for us but the truth is he looks physically limited out there by his lack of athleticism, and he is definitely suffering the growing pains you might expect a first-year NFL center to go through. I know he played the position in college but this is his first extensive experience in the pros here and he's struggling a little bit. If we find ourselves a top grade swing man in future off seasons I think we should stay disciplined and do what's best for the team, even if Joe Toledo does turn out to be RG of the future.
15. Rader not a Goat. When I originally saw the dropped touchdown I said to myself, that was tough. The ball was high, yet could have been caught, and after the beautiful catch he made on the sideline on another high ball, that high TD catch could have sealed Rader's spot on the team...but he didn't make that outstanding play. That's tough. Gotta feel for the real young unheralded guy. But if you really look, he did a lot of positive things out there, and he looks to be in the clear lead for the #3 TE spot. It's a play I'm sure he wants back, but I'm cautiously optimistic about him in general.
16. Hagan Finally Showed Up...All of Him. Including the hands. I'm calling it like it is, he doesn't have those suction cup hands like you want to see in a top flight WR. Not saying he doesn't get the job done because he clearly did in college and he will hopefully do so in the NFL, but again I have to INSIST that the hands he showed at the Senior Bowl and Combine were NOT a pure fluke-ish, Oronde Gadsden turned into James McKnight bad week. On a 3rd down catch he made on a low ball, that ball was not very well secured as he sank to the ground. He's lucky no part of the ball happened to touch the ground, or it could have been overruled in replay. Another possible catch he just didn't secure the ball. Am I saying his hands are horrible? No. But the problems do exist, and I know some people want to insist that there's no such thing as a Derek Hagan hands problem. Now also when I say all of Derek Hagan showed up, I do mean all of him...because he continues to look deadly fast getting off the line of scrimmage. That right there is a positive.
17. Jason Allen Unwrapped. For one thing, let's look at the positives. The dude has a knack for being around the ball on tackles. He's one of the people that swarm, when you have a D that swarms. That's a very good thing. Also, on the Deke Cooper interception, Allen jumped in front of the intended receiver and jumped like 10 feet in the air to try and get that ball himself. Had the ball not been overthrown by a mile, chances are decent that Allen could have had that INT himself. Also, I noted in the 3rd quarter when he started to play RCB, while I was at the game live in stadium, and so I made it a real point of emphasis to watch him play CB. On film, you just don't see CBs do their work, because they're always off camera. So, I do feel I have an advantage over the people that weren't in the game. On a play-by-play basis, he looked very natural as a corner, especially in man coverage. He looks a little more iffy in transition on zones, and he's always been a player that is very susceptible when peeking into the backfield. And, on the interception, that's exactly what he got caught doing. To me, live, as I watched him the entire play, it looked to me like he thought he was transitioning his WR off to deep safety coverage. I saw him do so on another zone coverage earlier, and his steps looked exactly like they did before, except this time around he saw that nobody was rotating onto his man so he made the attempt to catch up to the well-placed ball. Overall, I'm not concerned about it. Know what is just a little concerning? It's one thing if there's a highlight film out there of Ronnie Brown making you look a little silly physically, it's another thing if it's Carey Davis doing it. Yeah, Davis is 225 and he had a full head of steam and Allen got him low and got him on the ground (out of bounds)...but do you ever imagine Troy Polamalu getting stoned by a Carey Davis? I'm not saying it's a big concern at all, if anything it serves to show just how not concerned I am about Allen from this game, that such a little thing makes me worry more than the long TD.
18. What did I say about Fred Evans earlier? Forget what I said about the position being the source of his power. Fred's a monster of a different sort. If he belongs in company with Dan Wilkinson and Keith Traylor then he's cut from a pretty good cloth. Those guys have had good careers. What a competitor. Manny Who? Also Ben Ishola looks like he's got some potential. We've got a storm brewing among the DL, it will be tough to figure out who makes it...but I'm penciling Evans in as a roster player, and Ishola as a practice squad player.
19. Russell Pulled Up?? This one is confusing me. Russell got open on two deep pass plays on the same drive and was overthrown by You-Know-Who, but I'm hearing these accusations that Russell pulled up on one of the plays. I'm going to have to see some confirmation via a quote because what I see on the tape doesn't suggest anything of the sort. I hate to say people are seeing shadows on this one but I see no reason to be questioning Cliff Russell's heart on either of these plays.
20. Fred Gibson is our 5th WR. As things stand. He's too good to ignore. He's a better physical specimen than Cliff Russell yet he's doing the same things as him, and in the end that is what I believe will do it for Fred. He made good plays against good cover people in the first half, as opposed to making stellar plays against crappy cover guys last week. No doubt that when writers are alluding to our receiving phone calls about trading one of our WRs, Fred is probably the guy everyone is calling about. He's the 2005 fourth round draft pick that got unexpectedly cut for mental reasons before the 2005 season, then took his lumps for a full year on a Nick Saban practice squad. He's a valuable commodity now.
21. Anthony Alabi Does Well. I took a good look at him, he's every bit as athletic as advertised. Sometimes looks a little bit hesitant but that could just be him keeping his head on a swivel (a MUST in a zone blocking scheme...got that Bennie?). I didn't see many negative plays (there was one where he got overloaded by 3 rushers on the right side and he didn't do much to stop them on a run play) and that's about as much as you can ask until you see the guy up against top notch players. I dare say he looked the best of the 2nd string OLs...McIntosh included. Alabi looks good on the move, he's got good speed out pulling and he makes good reads out there. Like a lot of young OLs with good athletic ability, if you're going to get the best of him, it'll be by confusing him with an overload on his side.
22. Cleo Lemon Not Good. Was pretty disappointed in Cleo's showing during this game, both during the game live at the stadium and on tape review. He was not the same player he was a week ago when he got into a good rhythm with the offense. This time he was off-rhythm and unable to push through. He's certainly not going to give Joey Harrington any trouble playing like this. The pressure's on for a 3rd...you have to give the impression that you have good potential, or you're dead in the water.
