OK guys, I'm just going to blow through as much of this as quickly as possible so that you have the info and then we can flesh it out later. First and foremost, the team practiced outside this afternoon and it was very, very cold. During the session, we actually saw offensive ones vs. defensive blend and defensive blend vs. offensive two-ish blend. More on this later. It wasn't live, but was touch off and involved both units trying to drive the ball the length of the field.
Neither offensive unit scored on the defense, and the defensive ones absolutely dominated the offensive twos.
After, James Franklin met with the team and spoke for what I would consider a bit longer than normal, and then he followed by speaking to the media for about 12 minutes, followed by interview opportunities for Saquon Barkley for his first big media interview and Marcus Allen. A lot of the Franklin stuff centered around Saquon, but he also gave some pretty decent insight into where he thinks the team is at this moment.
So with that, I"m going to start with some of my own observations from the live session that we saw:
1) I've been focusing a lot on the offense lately, so we're going to start this one off tonight on the defensive side of the ball.
It was good to see Christian Campbell healthy and in action at corner, and he was lined up opposite Amani Oruwariye. So, maybe for the first time this spring I can solidly report that those are your twos at the corner spots. However, they were really mixing up the other spots pretty frequently, which is a symptom of what I can only call a widespread amount of bumps and bruises on a team wide basis.
Literally, injury specifics are harder to come by than tickets to see the Pope, but it's just clear that there are a bunch of guys that are resting what appear to be minor injuries.
That said, in the same unit, we saw Shareef Miller and Torrence Brown at the ends, with Evan Schwan mixing in there at end, plus Antoine White and Curtis Cothran manning the inside. During the period Saquon Barkley had a nice catch and run in the flat, and Chris Godwin started the series off with a contested catch over Campbell in traffic. We also saw Malik Golden and Marcus Allen at safety, and Jason Cabinda with somebody wearing No. 36 at linebacker, which does not correspond to a defensive number on the official roster.
EDIT: I'm told it's Jan Johnson.
In other words, don't get too worked up over any of this. Just know that Trace McSorley was running for his life a few times and overthrew Godwin on a streak to the back of the end zone, and the series ended with Marcus Allen making an easy interception in the middle of the field on what I believe was a tipped ball from McSorley. The defense was happy about this.
2) Before we get to the second series, Nelson, Dowrey, Gaia, Bates, Beh left to right on the offensive line with McSorley under center, and the usual suspects at wideout and tight end in Godwin, Gesicki, and I believe Blacknall, with Barkley at running back along with Mark Allen. More on Mark Allen later.
3) Second session had Tommy Stevens at the helm doing his best, but flat out the offensive line struggled against what appeared to be twos for the defensive line. Miller and Castagna on the ends, Ryan Monk and Robert Windsor at the tackle spots. Jason Vranic at linebacker, Koa Farmer and Nick Scott at the safety spots with Grant Haley at corner and John Reid playing nickel. Don't quote me on that, but that's how they were aligned.
Offense looked as followed L-R on the line:
Jenkins, Sorrell, Laurent, Gonzalez, Palmer.
Juwan Johnson and Gordon Bentley on the outsides, Polk in the slot, Tom Pancoast at tight end, Stevens out of the shotgun and Andre Robinson at tailback. Really though, Tommy was running for his life most of the time. The defensive line was just all over them, and the series started and ended pretty quickly without moving the ball much at all.
OK, I'm going to pause here and let you guys digest this portion. I'll get to this more in detail in the next post, but Franklin came out and said that he hadn't felt the offense or defense was ahead of the other until today, when the defense really seemed to have its way with them.
EDIT: I'm actually not going to get to it in the next post, because Tim's got me covered with a report from Franklin's post-practice. I'll let him take it from here.
Neither offensive unit scored on the defense, and the defensive ones absolutely dominated the offensive twos.
After, James Franklin met with the team and spoke for what I would consider a bit longer than normal, and then he followed by speaking to the media for about 12 minutes, followed by interview opportunities for Saquon Barkley for his first big media interview and Marcus Allen. A lot of the Franklin stuff centered around Saquon, but he also gave some pretty decent insight into where he thinks the team is at this moment.
So with that, I"m going to start with some of my own observations from the live session that we saw:
1) I've been focusing a lot on the offense lately, so we're going to start this one off tonight on the defensive side of the ball.
It was good to see Christian Campbell healthy and in action at corner, and he was lined up opposite Amani Oruwariye. So, maybe for the first time this spring I can solidly report that those are your twos at the corner spots. However, they were really mixing up the other spots pretty frequently, which is a symptom of what I can only call a widespread amount of bumps and bruises on a team wide basis.
Literally, injury specifics are harder to come by than tickets to see the Pope, but it's just clear that there are a bunch of guys that are resting what appear to be minor injuries.
That said, in the same unit, we saw Shareef Miller and Torrence Brown at the ends, with Evan Schwan mixing in there at end, plus Antoine White and Curtis Cothran manning the inside. During the period Saquon Barkley had a nice catch and run in the flat, and Chris Godwin started the series off with a contested catch over Campbell in traffic. We also saw Malik Golden and Marcus Allen at safety, and Jason Cabinda with somebody wearing No. 36 at linebacker, which does not correspond to a defensive number on the official roster.
EDIT: I'm told it's Jan Johnson.
In other words, don't get too worked up over any of this. Just know that Trace McSorley was running for his life a few times and overthrew Godwin on a streak to the back of the end zone, and the series ended with Marcus Allen making an easy interception in the middle of the field on what I believe was a tipped ball from McSorley. The defense was happy about this.
2) Before we get to the second series, Nelson, Dowrey, Gaia, Bates, Beh left to right on the offensive line with McSorley under center, and the usual suspects at wideout and tight end in Godwin, Gesicki, and I believe Blacknall, with Barkley at running back along with Mark Allen. More on Mark Allen later.
3) Second session had Tommy Stevens at the helm doing his best, but flat out the offensive line struggled against what appeared to be twos for the defensive line. Miller and Castagna on the ends, Ryan Monk and Robert Windsor at the tackle spots. Jason Vranic at linebacker, Koa Farmer and Nick Scott at the safety spots with Grant Haley at corner and John Reid playing nickel. Don't quote me on that, but that's how they were aligned.
Offense looked as followed L-R on the line:
Jenkins, Sorrell, Laurent, Gonzalez, Palmer.
Juwan Johnson and Gordon Bentley on the outsides, Polk in the slot, Tom Pancoast at tight end, Stevens out of the shotgun and Andre Robinson at tailback. Really though, Tommy was running for his life most of the time. The defensive line was just all over them, and the series started and ended pretty quickly without moving the ball much at all.
OK, I'm going to pause here and let you guys digest this portion. I'll get to this more in detail in the next post, but Franklin came out and said that he hadn't felt the offense or defense was ahead of the other until today, when the defense really seemed to have its way with them.
EDIT: I'm actually not going to get to it in the next post, because Tim's got me covered with a report from Franklin's post-practice. I'll let him take it from here.
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