FanPost

Cram9030's Notes on the First Day of Training Camp Part 1

Yesterday was my first time getting to go to training camp and I wanted to share it with all of you guys so I took a notebook and made some notes. I am going to start with some general things that I saw and move into what happened chronologically.

General Notes

  • Couplin has gorilla arms. He was very lanky but not as fluid as an athlete as I expected.
  • Ebron was always laughing and joking with the coaches
  • Reid was a live wire during practice. Always running 30 or 40 yards to touch to player with the ball every play
  • Big Joe has some nice soft hands. While he was warming up the ball just looked to stick to those massive paws.
  • Jason Jones was wearing a big ole brace on his right knee.
  • Ebron was on second team FG - for whatever that means.

Kickers

  • In the pre-practice warm ups neither of the kickers were all that impressive. Freese missed a 47 yarder and Techevico missed from the same distance
  • During practice though they both nailed their kicks from 25 and 35 yards but I did not see them attempt any longer ones than that.

Safety Drills

I was sitting right in front of the safety drills at the start of camps so I focused on those. The drills consisted of a short zone drill at the redzone and another that had the safeties line up outside of the "tackle" and scrap down the line to get the RB. There was a third drill but I didn't get a good enough look to determine what it was for.

  • On the scrap the line/blitz drill Ihedigbo looked much more natural than Quinn did. He hung tight to the line in a much more aggressive move than Quinn who tended to take a more oblique angle that would probably not result in him getting a tackle but at the very least would have contain.
  • An interesting part of that drill was that the safeties always acted like there was a fumble on every play when the did it and started running towards the other "end zone"
  • On the short zone coverage play the safeties acted like the were playing a short goal line zone and there was a short crossing route in front of them with an in or post route behind that they had to switch on too.
  • On this drill Quin was like glue. Covering both the imaginary cross and backpedaling and finding the WR with out turning his head and cutting out the route well.
  • Ihedigbo looked stiff during his backpedal and tended to leave a lot of room for the guy he was covering.

Punt/Kick Return Drill

The punt drill was on the other side of the field but I caught some of it.

  • Reggie and Joique were the most natural fielders of the bunch
  • Golden Tate had a bad catch and ended up stumbling. I did not see him taking any others but I think it was probably a one time thing.
  • We might want to strike Miller from the returner competition he seemed to have a hard time corralling the ball and was the only none camp body who consistently struggle getting clean catches from what I saw.
  • Broyles was returning punts as well and he looked pretty agile.

Slap Drill

This drill was one that all the players rotated through where they were placed on hands and knees and told to lunch at a bag that the coach was holding and slap it. They seemed to have an on going competition for who could slap it the furthest.

  • Slay and Couplin were the cream of the crop from the DB's for this drill. Both managed to slap it from the coaches hands every time and almost a yard away.
  • Suh, Taylor, and Reid were impressive as well. Very explosive.
  • On the other hand Mosely was the only player to completely wiff on the bag and in general was very poor at this drill.
  • Of the TE's in this drill Ebron seemed the most fluid and "won" every time typically celebrating and indulging in some good natured ribbing of the other players.

Tackle Drill

This is another one that everyone did. There was a coach holding a dummy at an angle and the players would run turn a corner and do a sort of leaping tackle.

  • Reid tackled the bag like it had said something about his mother but in doing so was a little slow around the corner.
  • Jones was very very careful planting on that right knee and did not seem like he had that much confidence in it.

Gunner Drill

This drill was pretty simple, two defenders tried to "tackle" one returner.

  • Carey did a good job with this drill as a tackler.
  • Training camp all star Edwards showed some good moves but even better speed to get the edge on his defenders twice and avoid getting tackled.
  • Bentley and Slay were both gunners on the same play and boy were they fast. They looked like the were shot out of cannon and were on the returner real quick. Though what would have happened next is hard to tell as it was not a clear "tackle" in my opinion.
  • Jonte Green was one of the returners and he really gave it to a couple of the back up safeties.
  • Lawson looked pretty good on the returns. He showed some nice moves and a little shake and bake.

Secondary Tackling Drill

In this drill the secondary player lined up in oblique angles and are practicing keeping their heads up and wrapping up. The only thing worth noting from this was that Greenwood lowered his head and got a little slopping.

Secondary INT Drills

The did this in a bunch of ways, from back pedaling straight and running forward to doing that at angles and around dummies.

  • Couplin does not seem to have very good hands. Almost always ended up "double catching" the ball.
  • Bentley looked very smooth through out these drills.
  • Slay had a bad drop on the backpedal drill where the came around a dummy but he caught the next.
  • Greenwood also had a drop during this drill.

I will be splitting up these post into a few parts because it is just way to long to put all in one. Let me know if you have any more questions about this stuff.

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