Thread: Ziggy's Training Camp Report 7/31/23

First day of camp for me this year. I got tickets today calculating that it would be the first day in pads. Let's look at the differences in camp first:

1. Heavy emphasis on special teams. Returners today were Montrell, Mims, Hinton, McLaughlin, and Skinner. Mims promptly muffed the first opportunity from the JUGS machine. I'm chalking that up to nerves.
2. Heavy emphasis on fundamentals. Tacking, blocking, receiving, and stunts.
3. Heavy emphasis on conditioning.
4. Heavy emphasis on situational football. One drill that they worked on today was 7 seconds left in the game, offense with the ball, the lead, and 4th down. They ran that play multiple times.

What was good-

The entire starting defense. Pressure was ramped up all day, and QBs had little to no time to throw. I didn't see a weakness in the starting group.

Jaleel McLauglin- That young man flashes. Quick to the hole, great burst, and looked to have good hands. He really shined out there today.

Garrett Bolles- I was watching him against Gregory multiple times. He looks like he's back to his old form, and easily held his own.

Having said that...Randy Gregory- He's fast, strong and clearly back to 100%. At one point, Albert O tried to block him and ended up being pancaked. Animal

Brandon Johnson- He looks like he picked right up where he left off last preseason.

What was bad-

This is the second year in a row that I watched Tim Patrick go down with a season ending injury. He knew it immediately.

The Offensive Line as a whole- Pressure was consistent all day by the defense. Half of the completions that the crowd cheered would have never happened due to sacks. I was probably the most disappointed in this group. If we start the season with Cush at center, it's going to be scary. He's still looking like a swinging gate.

Greg Dulcich- I was hoping to see him make some noise. He was running with the first team at the start of the day, then moved to second team for a lot of the rest of practice.

Russell Wilson- Held the ball too long, and made a lot of bad throws.

Overall Observations-

-The fields are flipped from last year. The fan view is the same as you see on TV. Left to right, or right to left.
- It's a different experience with seating. In past seasons they would lead people down to the bottom of the grass single file and seat them in rows one at a time. Now that there are only 3k fans allowed, they just open the gates and let you go sit wherever you want.
- First player out was Chris Manhertz. He's a big man. I'd bet against his listed size being much smaller than his actual size. He looks like a legit 270 to me.
- Size is the first thing that caught my eye. The belly is back. It looks like he gained back the weight that he lost last season. That being said, he looks small next to Powers and McGlinchey. Samaji Perine has thighs the size of most men's chest. Massive lower body. They brought in size and power. It was obviously and emphasis in the offseason.
- I couldn't find Riley Moss out there. He must have missed practice.
- Damarri Mathis is clearly the second corner. I'm not going to say that it's set in stone, but when they pull a second year player off of special teams completely that's usually the reason. Especially when he was on multiple ST units last season. There may be some competition there but he clearly has a stranglehold on the job at the moment.
- I was expecting a lot more hitting, a lot more physicality in general but perhaps they're easing them into that this week.
- Kareem Jackson started with the first team D today.
- It's a new era. Payton runs things his own way. He's not afraid to stop things and teach one on one. At one point I noticed that Montrell was due up for the next return, but
SP pulled Mims out and had him take that rep. Not sure what that was about. It's not as organized as the Shanahan camps were, but definitely more organized that the last few coaches have had.

I have concerns about depth across the team, and our OL is no different. We have poor depth and only 4 of our top 5 are above avg players there in the Belly, Bolles, Powers, and McGlinchey. A injury will hurt bad there. Cush is trash, has always been trash and will continue to be trash he needs to be moved on from. That being said they do still need time to gel. As for Greg he will be a package guy until he learns to block. As for Russ other reports mentioned some bad and good throws but pads seemed to have guys off a bit today for some reason on offense, especially after the TP injury. I really do believe our starting Defense and even our starting offense on paper is a solid 9 win type team, but we lack depth on this team and if injuries pile or starters underperform we are f'ed again regardless of SP at coach.

Thanks for the report! Always great to get some snapshots from those of you that attend. The focus on fundamentals, conditioning and situational football is welcome. No camp cupcake this year thank god.

If Cushenberry is trash what does that say about Fuller, Wattenberg and the stiff out of Oregon? Flip Cushenberry and Meinerz and quit pretending that the backups are any better than the starters.

The rookie looked good, but he was playing against 3rd and 4th teamers. Give him time

Originally Posted by Jaded

If Cushenberry is trash what does that say about Fuller, Wattenberg and the stiff out of Oregon? Flip Cushenberry and Meinerz and quit pretending that the backups are any better than the starters.

I'm not, I said our depth sucks many times. Cush is trash and has always been trash. we have 4 competent OL Players on this team and that's it. No one is pretending anything.

Good stuff, Zig. I'm eager to see if McLaughlin can make plays in the pre-season. We absolutely need more speed on offense, and it's an aspect that neither Vonte or Perine really brings. Jaleel looks like a candidate to continue the tradition of a rookie UDFA making the team.