Gropp

It should have been 10-13...yeah, Garp played exceedingly well.

Mallet has never gone 10-13 EVER in his life.

Hate to be that guy, but Garoppolo was playing against scrubs. I would like to see him against starter level competition before I get too high on him. That said, he did look more decisive and confident than Mallett ever has.

KontradictioN said:

Hate to be that guy, but Garoppolo was playing against scrubs. I would like to see him against starter level competition before I get too high on him. That said, he did look more decisive and confident than Mallett ever has.

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You aren't being that guy, you are absolutely correct. But he really did look good last night, it is hard not to be at least a little excited.

And Gawd Mallett looked terrible.

@BenVolin
We can’t say Mallett is good, bad or even mediocre. He’s a total enigma


No I can firmly say Mallett is bad.

Was Volin the only one that applied for the Globe job? Because I just can't believe there weren't better guys that applied for the job.

KontradictioN said:

Hate to be that guy, but Garoppolo was playing against scrubs. I would like to see him against starter level competition before I get too high on him. That said, he did look more decisive and confident than Mallett ever has.

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He was also playing with "scrubs"

patchick said:

Open call: a short, usable nickname that doesn't sound like an insult. Anybody? Anybody?

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Garo?

Polo?

I still like "Jimmy G."

KontradictioN said:

Hate to be that guy, but Garoppolo was playing against scrubs. I would like to see him against starter level competition before I get too high on him. That said, he did look more decisive and confident than Mallett ever has.

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No you don't lol

Not at this point. Baby steps.

Jimmy Goatpollo?

FirstAndGoal said:

He looked good but let's temper it a bit. It was a vanilla set of plays against a vanilla set of players. It's like saying he played "Chopsticks" on the piano very well. He's got a lot of work before he should be anointed. It was promising if he can get comfortable with the system and continue to get better but it's one preseason game.

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Considering what they have been saying about him in practice, I am sure most people were expecting the worse, some people were even saying the Pats were not going to let him out there, because of how bad he looked.

Just one half of one preseason game, against third stringers. Nonetheless, what I was looking for with JG was throwing accuracy and decision-making. And he seemed to have it both last night. As others have said, he did NOT look overwhelmed by his first NFL experience.

Mallett looked horrible. Actually, other than Tyms, Butler, and JG, I think pretty much the whole rest of the team looked horrible.

FirstAndGoal said:

He looked good but let's temper it a bit. It was a vanilla set of plays against a vanilla set of players. It's like saying he played "Chopsticks" on the piano very well. He's got a lot of work before he should be anointed. It was promising if he can get comfortable with the system and continue to get better but it's one preseason game.

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I think in the cases of both Mallett and MarcoPolo (no? no, probably not) the response isn't so much about what they did as how they did it.

Mallett looked wooden, skittery, and worst of all, dejected. JimmyDean (hell no) showed a pinch of that magical infectious confidence that surrounds true leaders.

Brady6 said:

Garopollo looked good. He will be a terrific backup QB for us. I hope he doesn't take a regular season snap just the same though.

Tyms looked like Sims last preseason. He isn't making this team.

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Why would you not want the backup QB to get any regular season snaps? That seems the height of stupidity as Brady gets older and becomes more likely to get dinged up for a game or two. The backup needs to be ready to play.

Tyms looked better than Boyce.

patchick said:

I think in the cases of both Mallett and MarcoPolo (no? no, probably not) the response isn't so much about what they did as how they did it. Mallett looked wooden, skittery, and worst of all, dejected. JimmyDean (hell no) showed a pinch of that magical infectious confidence that surrounds true leaders.

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Exactly. Both guys were playing under less than ideal circumstances, so of course this all has a huge asterisk next to it. But the young man stepped onto the first NFL field he's ever seen and played as if he belonged there.

Uncle Rico said:

Ben Volin's take on things:

http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2...yan-mallett/7zz6sBPlrQWlniGohECebI/story.html



Maybe I made my second Dark & Stormy a bit too strong last night, but I didn't get a sense that Garoppolo was "overwhelmed" in any way. I'll grant that you have to weigh the competition he faced last night — and Volin certainly has spent more time at camp than I have. But I didn't see anything last night that justified such a casual and complete dismissal.

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Ben Volin rivals Gary Tanguay for the role of stupidest man in Boston sports media.

Uncle Rico said:

Ben Volin's take on things:

http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2...yan-mallett/7zz6sBPlrQWlniGohECebI/story.html



Maybe I made my second Dark & Stormy a bit too strong last night, but I didn't get a sense that Garoppolo was "overwhelmed" in any way. I'll grant that you have to weigh the competition he faced last night — and Volin certainly has spent more time at camp than I have. But I didn't see anything last night that justified such a casual and complete dismissal.

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Gropp may have looked like a deer in the headlights during drills but that was not on display last night other than Mallett's time on the field. Gropp, like Cousins looked completely comfortable and was really effective. To me it is not surprising a rookie QB would look a little shaky in drills where they are installing the offense for the first time however it is how he responds in game situations that ultimately matters most and he passed that test with flying colors.

If nothing else this is going to make the rest of the Pre-season really interesting, a true battle has broken out for the #2 spot. Imo Gropp is the leader in the clubhouse but there are still three more rounds to go.

MrNathanDrake said:

Bad news: Gropp won't see regular season playing time for another 3 years

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If a backup to Brady sees no regular season time, isn't that GOOD news?

I am party said:

JAG? Is his middle initial A?

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Yes it is. His initials are JAG.

Consider, if you will, to put things in perspective a trip in Mr Peabody's Wayback Machine to the turn of the century where in the 2nd half of pre-season games fans were thrilled with the TD bomb antics of Michael Bishop to Sean Morey game after game, "winning" several in the 4th QTR. That was that era's JAG to Tyms show. Many fools felt that Bishop was our answer to the Michael Vick style QB and should supplant The Statue who by then was showing cracks in his base.

Back to JAG. Horrible as he looked in camp, he showed that he has field presence unlike his competitor the Bledsoe clone (Drew's arm, but w/o Drew's talent) and can arc the football unlike both Mallett and Bledsoe. I'm going to dismiss my preceding paragraph and predict that there's now a chance that BB could go with only 2 QBs in 2014.

I is just one game, but still nice to see this:

Haley said:

I is just one game, but still nice to see this:

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Grappa is on a pace for 5,000 yards! Woo hoo!

Actually, one thing that does stand out is what a high percentage of his yards came to one guy. There could be a few reasons, including that that one guy had a mismatch in his favor, and the QB milked that a bit. So yeah, the enthusiasm obviously has to be measured; you obviously want to see him work a more varied offense.

That said, that field presence and calm, along with the touch and field awareness, showed a lot of promise. Curiosity piqued, appetite whetted.