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Was Smith Good or Not?

PhinKev

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I just watched the scrimmage over the internet and I was left with a bad sinking feeling about Brent Smith. I'm not ready to cut the guy, but he looked a step slow.

Then I read reports on the scrimmage and I hear about how great the O-line and Smith looked. This is what one reporter said:

"Brent Smith's surgically repaired knee holding up well against All-Pro end Jevon Kearse."

Smith Said:

''I had a decent couple of days,'' said Smith, who missed last season. ``I let him get by me once, but that's the only time since I've been here.''

I'm admittedly no expert, I have watched a great deal of football (which means I'm still no expert) but Smith looked shaky to me.

I guess the reporter could have meant that he held up well because he didn't hurt the knee again?

But did anyone think he played well?
 
Think they were talking about the entire three days. During the scrimmage Smith let Kearse go by him more than once, however it only netted Kearse one sack because Ray Lucas stepped up other times. Smith was definitely getting abused when Kearse was going against him.
 
Kearse got one sack when he was in. The other times it seemed that Kearse took too wide of an arc and BSmith just allowed him to circle around and Smith picked him back up behind the QB. Kearse didn't really threaten the QB, I think he figured he could take that wide angle to get around BSmith, and it only worked one time. I don't think BSMith did as bad as people here are saying.

Crud
 
Remember, Jevon Kearse runs a 4.3 forty. Not many offensive lineman can handle that.
 
Originally posted by ckparrothead
Think they were talking about the entire three days. During the scrimmage Smith let Kearse go by him more than once, however it only netted Kearse one sack because Ray Lucas stepped up other times. Smith was definitely getting abused when Kearse was going against him.

thats bogus. Kearse went around Smith the same way the play before the sack but Lucas got the ball off. as far as run blocking, i really didnt focus on smith much but i thought the overall performance of the offiensive line on the first two series was unimpressive until we started hitting mcmicheal and chambers. but the second series was better than the first IMO. But we also passed alot more the second time around. ricky had one nice hole that he got about 7-8 yards and bulled through about 3-4 titans. after that the line seemed to do better. 2nd and 3rd string guys were in at that point but i do remember seeing first string defense guys aginst our 2nd/3rd teamers so it is incouraging. but as i have said in other posts dont read too much into all this as far as jelling together cus alot of 1st string guys werent out there. so there is no way of telling if the Oline looked like they are suppose to look. But as for Brent smith. he would immediately be second on my chart at this point. waiting for spriggs to get his chance. i think he is better. i also worry about smiths injuries of the past. not just last year.
 
Originally posted by Muck
Remember, Jevon Kearse runs a 4.3 forty. Not many offensive lineman can handle that.

marcus spriggs did last year.
 
I was just on my way here to start a thread about this exact same thing......Here's another story that said the o-line played well,especially Smith.....It makes me think that either our amatuer reporters aren't getting the whole story from what they see or we're getting smoke blown up our a$$ from the proffessional ones. article
 
The problem is, our eyes didn't witness the three full practices where Smith faced Kearse. The Newspaper reporters did, and that would probably be why they thought he did well.

He might very well have performed good during practice, we just didn't get to see it.
 
I don't remember Kearse running a 4.3 I remember him running a 4.4

Oh well semantics. I just got through watching our first offensive series again via the archived video feed on the sunshine network and I'll tell you that yes Brent Smith was getting abused at least on that first drive. Three plays stand out.

1. We ran the ball toward left side. Jevon had his way with Brent and was able to disrupt the flow enough to where Konrad couldn't get a clean block on the linebacker that was hitting up at the hole. Result, Williams pretty much would have had either 0 yards or 1 yard.

2. Pass play. Jevon made a fast break and beat Smith off the ball. Ray Lucas felt Kearse coming and was forced to step up in order to not get hammered, and then he immediately overthrew an open Ricky Williams in the mid-field by the LOS. My guess is he overthrew him because he felt rushed and got his concentration broken. Whether its Lucas' fault or not Kearse was still responsible for it, and Smith was responsible for not letting Kearse be responsible for that.

3. Very next play. Jed Weaver lines up left side. Takes off left while Kearse does same technique. Beats Smith as badly as you can be beaten and runs up to Lucas for the easy sack. Lucas didn't have a chance.

There were other plays I think I counted two, where Kearse was also getting close to the QB and would have had a sack had the play not been a short 3 step drop quick pass. Of the first 7 or 8 plays, Kearse was either in position to had we been trying an intermediate pass, or he DID, blow up the play, 5 times. This is not good. On the bright side Jamie Nails mauled every man in his way on one play and personally opened up a 6-7 yard hole and Ricky basically only had to follow Nails to gain as much.
 
Kearse was 6'5" 254 lbs and ran a 4.3 forty at Fort Myers High School.

As for Spriggs, he did well against Kearse. But he didn't handle him. Lots of plays he never even engaged Kearse. No one did. Chan Gailey did a great job of avoiding Kearse and limiting his chances of success.
 
I just watched that series where our DL took over the game and all I have to say is wow man. Wow. They had that 4 DE line up for about 4 plays I think and I think 3 of them ended in sacks...2 officially but I counted that Jay Williams had another sack that should have been called a sack, as he ran right by Neil O'Donnell and put his left arm on Neil's waist before continuing to run by him, and Neil threw the ball like a full second after that. Sorry but thats a sack, had it been season Jay would have dragged Neil so far with him he wouldnt know where he was gonna land. Burnett also did well, I counted two sacks for Williams, two for Taylor, and one sack for Larry Chester when they pulled the 4 DE formation off the field.

On every other play though, the DL completely crushed the pocket around Neil and a lot of times he got the ball off as contact was being made.
 
CK, I don't know much about the Titans so I don't know what numbers their starting OL wear..was most of their starting OL out there when our DL really picked it up?
 
If I remember correctly it was a peppered line of starters and backups. Kind of like if we took out Todd Perry, Mark Dixon, and Brent Smith in order to get a look at Leon Searcy, Jamie Nails, and Marcus Spriggs.

Except that Nails started the game because Dixon didn't play. They weren't all starters, but they were all roster guys not baby rookies with no hope of makin the team. I mean obviously you can tell just from the numbers, 5 sacks in 6 plays, that they weren't playing so well and there's no way we'd reproduce that success in that magnitude in the season, however its still a good sign for us.
 
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