Captain Lou said:
It is impossible to gauge a season's potential on these games.
I must respectfully disagree with you on that statement.... In the past few years it was easy to see the weak area's just by watching the preseason games.
First and foremost... we all must remember the preseason games only shows a limited amount of playing time for the actual starters... once they come off the field and the second-third stringers come in... the score and outcome of the game becomes meaningless.. Also (and to add confussion)... when the starters are in... we will not see real game play calling... for an example... Last week against the Bucs, Sabin and company called for silent audibles... In a real game situation, a silent audible wouldnt have been called, but it was and only because it was a meaningless game and it gave the coaching staff a chance to expirment and see how well it works.. or doesnt work...
In last nights game, there were several complexed blocking schemes called for the starting O-line... it was obvious to see the timing was off and I'm sure Sabin and HH will address that in the next two weeks.. A perfect example was the 4th and goal at the 1... The blocking scheme called for Jeno James to pull.. He was late and so there was a real bottle neck at the goal line which stopped Ronnie cold in his tracks.. SOOOOOoooo I'll write that missed TD opportunity to HH experimenting with the blocking schemes... once again... if it had been a real regular season game, I'm sure Sabin would have kicked a FG...
Now lets look at the other areas that does preview how the regular season will be played. In previous years and primarily during the Wanny years... you will see the O-line blocking be a simple man to man scheme... Meaning your responsible for stopping the man directly in front of you.. Well, in previous years, our starting o-line couldnt man up... So that told me the o-line was going to be a problem and would struggle during the regular season.
Another preseason highlite was how many times can you remember Feidler or AJ or Griese on a roll out, or get a decent amount of blocking, only to dump it off because they couldnt find an open receiver.. It was only preseason... but told me our passing game was questionable for the regular season.. which in hindsight... it was...
Now lets point out the contrary, during the 1st and 2nd quarter last night, when our starters were playing... our secondary did a dam fine job of containing Carolina's 1st string receiving corp... Which should also tell you that we will be fine there once the regular season starts and the injured players get healthy. Sure, there will be the occasional open man that will burn us good... but overall I'm very confident the secondary will hold its own..
All in all, I feel good about this years team... from what I saw last night, Pittsburg will beat us the first week of the season, however once the team gets a few regular season games under their belt and once everybody is on the same page... We have the talent to beat Pitts, NE, Carolina or whomever esle later in year....
