Well, it's finally back in my system. Being away from football for the longest time since 1993 I found myself starting to wonder if it would ever begin. It was nice to be out there but man was that place crowded today. At least 3000 fans, and I would lean more towards 3500 showed up today. Filling the stands, the fence outside on the South Endzone, and every single stairway, and level of the parking garage. Since I've been there a million times it seems, I knew that the best place to be would either be on the rooftop or the South stairs so I picked the stairs and I was actually a little bit early.

I had a pretty good view but take in account that I was also about another 50-60 yrds from where I usually sit. So it was very hard to take it all in like I usually do. Also keep in mind that this is nothing more than my opinion on what I saw.


The Qb's

We all know what we have in Chad P so it goes without saying that he was throwing some sweet passes within 25 yds of the LOS.

Chad Henne was doing a little of both. Although his intermediate stuff is really great to watch. Especially so, after watching so many different wanna be Qb's since Marino retired. He made one really nice deep throw to London, and launched another to Wr Chris Williams that had the crowd go bonkers. I could not make out end of the play because the tarp was in my way on that side of the field.

Pat White has a nice arm, I'll say that. He launched one pass where his footing was not the best and it still traveled 45 yds or more. He might have been best served to throw a check down though. The ball was batted away but it was thrown into obvious over the top help and the safety had a bead on it from the launch.

Wr's

Tedd Ginn is looking a bit stronger and he is also making some nice cuts in his routes. Today he took two or three end arounds and turned them into passes. He has a PRETTY nice arm too. One went about 40 yards and was a nice spiral, and it was pretty on TARGET as well.

Devone Bess also got stronger. He made a really sweet catch on the sidelines that only he could have caught. Totally laid out and stay in bounds.

London to me, had one of the better days catching the ball. He made a nice one handed grab where he used his body as a shield against the defender to where he was the only one with a chance to touch the ball. He can go up and get it!!

Pattrick Turner caught one shorter pass going across the field, and made a totally killer juke and totally fooled two on coming defenders, who btw, were looking for their shoes afterwards.

Hartline had one nice catch where he reached out and snatched the ball out of the air, only to take two steps and lost it while tucking it in to his chest. Right into a defenders hands.

Chris Williams gets one of the better catches of the day with a long TD thrown by Henne.

Rb's

Nothing much to say except Cobbs made 3 or 4 really nice runs against the third string defense. Other than that it was hard to make yards for Ronnie and Ricky. Ronnie by the way looks Chiseled. I'd swear I see his legs being just a tad leaner than in years past. Definitely more cut thats for sure.

Ricky looks to be in fantastic shape as well. Well, he always does ...

OL

I watched a lot of the one on one drills against the defense and 3 Offensive lineman stood out. One was Long, who looked excellent against everyone he went up against. Another was Smiley, who more than stood his ground against all oncomers except one time, Fergi got underneath his arms and had him backing up right into where the Qb would have been. Last one was Grove who really really gets planted and he stays so low that it's hard for a defender to get that initial push. Although Murphy looked a little better in team drills, he got it handed to him by Starks, and Furgi on one on ones a few times. Nothing great or bad out of Carey. Berger also does a good job getting underneath but he was getting pushed backwards a lot on one on ones. Ndukwe got up limping early on. Hopefully it's nothing serious.

There is some offense for you guys....defense coming up.

Good to see your updates on here again Ozzy! Thanks, it sure has been a while!

Ozzy is still the iron man.

OK lets talk Defense


The Cb's

Will Allen and Eric Green worked as the starters and Green was getting beat off the line pretty consistantly by the big guys.

Vontae Davis, and Sean Smith worked second team, and I really like Smith's back pedel. He makes a nice one step turn, keeping his hips pretty level, and has a nice burst coming out of it. Vontae had the coaches working with him a lot on his press coverage. Not that he was screwing it up but to enhance it. He is a very physical specimen out there I'll say that. I did get a lot better view of Smith's side because of where I was at just to be clear.

Not much I can say about our safeties sorry.

The DL

With Roth out, JT was working with the 1st team. He and Porter switched sides a few times but for the most part it was JT on the left side, which I don't know if I would like to see him there a lot. I want him on his more natural side even if he lines up behind Porter. I actually expect that moreso than anything else. Porter is not terrible in pass defense so imagine the stunts they can do with them both on that side. I want my LDE to be a run stopper, and that is not JT's strong suit.

Ferguson is a monster. Period!

The two other players worth mentioning to me were Solai, and McDaniel. On one on ones Solai got some serious push. I was impressed with him but not as much as McDaniel. He is very quick off the snap and gets nice and low with lots of leg strength behind him. I want to see more of him for sure....

Nothing much on the Lb's sorry. A lot of them are tying their shirts up so you can't see their numnbers.

Thanks Oz. Once again you are are a reliable dependable fixture when it comes to high quality TC reports.

Thank You for the report.