Ok first I would like to start out by saying that getting a chance to hang out with people like FreakInClearH20 (known as FinFreak on DTalk), Den54, his little son, Muck, Michelle, and the absent Jaydog really made this experience worth it. I know you want me to get to what I saw but first I just wanted to say this...that they are some of the coolest and friendliest people I've ever met and they made the experience because it was just plain fun hanging out with each other. Den54 and his son, Freak, and myself took some downtime at NFL Experience for a little while playing around like kids...throwing footballs at targets, running pass routes and catching from a football throwing machine (I caught it hehe, too bad I'm a hefty guy and was slow as mollasses running the route), kicking field goals, and running obstacle courses. Watch out for Den54's little kid come the 2016 draft. :)
So on to the good stuff. Unfortunately there's only a paucity of "good stuff" here and I'll let ya know about the conditions a bit so that you get an idea of how much (or rather how little) we saw of everything that was going on. Disney ain't no Davie as Muck reported. The offense played against the Bucs D on the baseball field, and the lines for the makeshift football field were set up on the outfield which really limited how close you could possibly get to the action. I didn't get to see the defense at all today because Den54, Freak, and I all bugged out after the first morning practice because we heard that the afternoon practice was gonna be in shorts and we weren't impressed with the views or facilities. Sorry Muck! (he thinks we'll be meeting him in approximately 15 min for the afternoon practice and here I sit back in Tampa already) The setup was thus...on the part of the football field closest to us (mezzanine, first base, right field) they were doing passing drills. And waaaaaaaayyy the heck away they were doing middle drills, oklahoma drills, and then the two sections would break for some 11 on 11's.
Passing drill #1. One on ones. The quarterback just sits back while one WR and one DB go up against each other. The WR runs whatever route they decided on or whatever. I'll warn you first off that this is man to man, and in the NFL if a WR can't beat single coverage he doesn't belong in the game. That said, all our WRs were pretty much beating their men consistently. The most impressive part of this drill was Jay Fiedler. He was throwing the ball extremely well, exactly where he was supposed to for the most part. Jeff Ogden impressed, had a couple of good looking routes and catches, in this drill especially, but overall in general for the whole practice he was impressive and I really see what Dave is talkin about when he says he's a Jeff Ogden fan. In this drill he made a great catch and put a move on his defender that would have shook him loose for a possible TD (barring a safety roving over the middle to pop him in real action). Oronde Gadsden had a few catches, very nice work in general for Oronde. Not making his famous ridiculous catches but just making some nice bread and butter stuff happen. Albert Johnson also impressive, running good routes making decent catches. Chris Chambers quiet (on at least one play I could see that he was easily interfered with, but he did have at least one catch in this drill) If I don't mention them, they were not impressive. Ray Lucas....I dont remember if he took part in this drill or if it was another one but in general the guy sucked. Sorry but true. He was underthrowing, throwing in the wrong spots, etc. If you're a big Lucas fan ya ought to hide a little right about now. The highlight was Jay's deep ball to the man-2-man streaking WRs, very nice touch mostly on target. The lowlight, was on one of James McKnights only passes thrown his way during this drill, he ran a nice deep out and beat his man, Jay threw it to him in stride, and the ball went through JM's outstretched paws yet again. Not an easy no-brainer pass, but still very catchable, and would have been for a big play had JM been the 3rd WR in the offense, singled up on a DB.
Middle Drill #1. Keep in mind that while the one-on-one passing was going on the middle drill was going on simultaneously so it was difficult to gauge both accurately and I kept my eye on the passing mostly (since it was closer and hard to see the middle drill). It looked like to me, that Ricky Williams was not ultra productive in this. In fact, it looked like he was getting "tackled" in the backfield or at the line of scrimmage a lot. But this is the Middle Drill, and its against another team...so magnify our normal middle drills by x3 and thats probably the intensity of a middle drill between the Dolphins and Buccaneers. The offense is simply not supposed to win this consistently. That said, Ricky did pepper the middle drill with some nice 4 to 6 yard gainers, few and far between, but something. Mark Dixon started. They mixed in some other middle drills with the backups, Seth McKinney playing next to Searcy and Nails, Jerman, and I think Cesario but I could be wrong (Spriggs and Robert Edwards both inactive). Leonard Henry broke a nice run that I can remember. Couldn't get a good view of the lineman very well but FreakInClearH20 could tell you that Seth McKinney looked good...sometimes making some savvy moves like pushing a rusher into another rusher to knock both out of the play. Freak had the ultra-zoom going on his video camera so he could see close up. He mentioned Seth McKinney fairly often, doing nice things. Not much to mention about Searcy or Nails, Dixon or Perry, unfortunately...which is to say that they didn't necessarily do nothing good just that we probably couldn't/didn't see it.
Oklahoma Drills. I'm ultra-sorry to report that we didn't really get to see the Oklahoma Drills much. They went on simultaneously with a pretty entertaining 7on7 with both Fiedler and Lucas back there. We didn't even realize they were going on until about halfway through them, and from there I know I found it hard to see. If you dont know what it is, its just lineman against DL, no RB, just colliding bodies trying to beat each other one-on-one. I would say we looked alright in them, but I absolutely could not verify this.
7 on 7 drills. Jay looked good in these for the most part but did make at least 2 boneheaded throws that kind of reminded you of some of the boneheaded throws that he made during the season that made us all want to stand up, and change the reality of time and space to suit our needs with the sheer volume of our voices. I'm not a Jay hater by any means, but whether those were just miscommunications with receivers or what, he still nearly got intercepted I think 2 or 3 times. One by the way was tipped up by the defender and Albert Johnson showed great awareness by coming back for the ball and catching it...kudos to Al (check with Muck I'm pretty sure it was AJ but it could have been one of the others maybe Baker). Which of course brings me to Baker, who looked fairly good once again in camp making a catch or two or three. OG stood out again making some nice bread-and-butter type plays over the middle. McMichael caught only one or two balls but still looked like he'd be a little harder to bring down. Alonzo did nothing. Ogden looked good once again, running precise routes (it looked like) and for the most part catching everything thrown catchable. Chambers not many catches in this drill, if any at all. But I'm sure Muck will describe to you later a very nice looking designed play where Chambers streaked out on the right side with Jed Weaver, then crossed out to pull a defender off Jed who ended up open on the sideline with Jay throwing him a beauty of a ball for about 20 yards. (We love Norv). This play MAY have been in the 11 on 11's, cuz my mind seems to confuse the two a lot...
Clean-up. This will include 11 on 11's, which in the memory tend to get muddled up with both the middle drill and the 7on7's. I will say that Ricky definitely seemed to get going more in 11on11's when it was not known necessarily whether we'll be running or passing. Konrad didn't drop the ball, but also didn't do anything to especially endear himself to me...though he caught one or two passes. One thing you notice about the offense is them throwing everywhere on the field (not deep so much though, I noticed). To the backs for short gainers, to the WRs for short gainers or intermediate gainers, plays from the TEs both big and small...etc. It seemed like the Bucs were seriously working on their blitz packages in this drill and they were sometimes throwing everything plus the kitchen sink at our OL. Some plays we had beautiful pickups of the blitz. Others, not so. I think Leon Searcy missed a block on a blitz because Freak had his viewfinder and said that on that play Seth McKinney did really well, yet a blitzing safety came right through the middle right side of the OL and sacked the QB. Ray Lucas also got sacked once in what seemed like a general protection failure (second team OL), as Lucas ended up scrambling right and getting chased down. This 11 on 11 drill though, seemed like the Travis Minor show. I'm very happy to report that Travis had some very nice looking runs throughout, inside the OL and outside, and he had one BEAUTY of a catch streaking downfield thrown to him by Jay Fiedler...it was a diving catch and he held on. I was extremely impressed. Shake and bake Minor all the way, catching and running.
So these are the guys who I came away from this "scrimmage" very satisfied with in no particular order. Jay Fiedler. Albert Johnson. Robert Baker. Jeff Ogden. Oronde Gadsden. Jed Weaver. Leonard Henry. Travis Minor. Seth McKinney.
These are the guys who seemed somewhat active but did nothing to really IMPRESS me a whole lot. Randy McMichael. Ricky Williams. Rob Konrad. Deon Dyer. Chris Chambers. All guys in general that you really want to see excell in this type of situation, just did not do a whole lot to impress me.
These are the guys who are in my personal doghouse. Ray Lucas. Zak Kustok (he just won't get out of my doghouse, I don't like the kid much). Umm...Ray Lucas. OH YEAH, Alonzo Mayes. Ronny Daniels. And finally umm...Ray Lucas.
The prominent ones not mentioned, Mark Dixon, Leon Searcy, Jamie Nails, Tim Ruddy, Brent Smith, Todd Perry, Troy Andrew, and Tim Levcik...well I just do not feel that I can give a good evaluation of any of them as none of them stood out, did anything that caught my eye, and they might as well not have been on the field for all the amount I could see what they were doing and how they were doing. I was disappointed that Levcik did not really get a chance to play, perhaps he was being saved a bit for the afternoon drills as it appeared with Jay Fiedler back in the lineup there was not as much throwing to go around to evaluate the two guys vying for 3rd string. Margin Hooks, Sam Simmons, Sulecio Samford, and Anthony Cesario are also in the same boat. None caught my eye at any time.
I apologize for the small breadth of the report, and leave any of the rest to my fellow watchers Muck, Den54, and Freak to comment on what THEY saw that I probably did not.