ctpatsfan77 said:
From
Bubba's NFL Europe diary:
Reminds me of a certain play by Tedy Bruschi against the Colts. :rocker:
Ray has three forced fumbles for the 8 week season, he also was involved with a tackle that led to another FF, though I think the DL gets the credit on that one. He played very well with two big plays on the goal line to keep runners out of the end zone. He also ended the game for Cologne by knifing through traffic to make an open field tackle to shut down a lateral circus as Amsterdam tried to keep the ball alive on a 4th down play with seconds left on the clock. The play-by-play man reported he has been nursing a shoulder injury, something new that may explain why he has been less of a human bullet and more of a wrap-up tackler. He certainly gave the Amsterdam QB a love tap to keep him out of the end zone, hopefully he'll be fully recovered in time for training camp.
For the rest of NE's NFLE players: Steitz didn't play, he was replaced in the line-up last week by another OG in what looked to me like routine swap out, but not playing this week has me wondering what is going on.
Zuriel Smith remains on IR with a bum knee, he had some nice returns before this happened.
Roehl struggled with his pass protection to start the game, but looked good in run blocking. He settled down after the first quarter and matched up well on the pass blocking, he also had a great play in the 4th quarter where he blocked two players at the same time, but he still gave up a couple off sacks on the day. I like him, but he's not cracking NE's line-up yet.
Musinski did a nice job as a gunner, he even drew a block in the back penalty. He has been playing more on Special Teams and is doing well, though I have to wonder if injuries forced him on the teams or performance. He had a couple catches, and had another negated by a penalty. He had several good blocks, one on a WR screen sprang his partner for a big gain. I like his play, but he'll probably be competing for a Practice Squad berth.
Spann grabbed another int on a bad pass into the end zone (3 or 4 for the season in limited playing time) - he made a poor decision to run it out to the 11, but had a pretty good game overall. He had one big hit to jar the ball loose, and made a number of tackles after catches or in run support - he does a really good job coming up and tackling players to limit YAC (and I'm talking 6'5"+ WRs and TEs). I didn't like the play calling that had him dropping back before the pass and giving Frankfort's tall WRs a window underneath - it reminded me of the soft secondary play that hurt NE so much last year - when they had him up in press coverage he usually shut the WR down. He was platooning at RCB and was picked on because the other CB has so many ints, but I like the way he is playing and think he could do well in NE's scheme.
