Breer 7/30/07 notes

July 30th, 2007
Practice notes
Posted by Albert Breer at 5:28 pm

Practice was held outside on the upper practice fields this afternoon, in full pads. And there was, again, a packed house to watch. Here’s what we picked up:

– One interesting thing to watch early on was blitz-pickup work with the tight ends, backs and linebackers during one of the early periods of practice. The drill matched sent inside linebackers between a couple of bags, representing the A gap, at backs, and outside linebackers off the sides of the bags to edge rush on tight ends. One guy who stood out, in particular, was Benjamin Watson, a guy who’s not exactly known for his blocking. His first time up, Watson extended outside to engage Pierre Woods, and rode him further out and to the ground. On his next chance, he couldn’t get Chad Brown outside, but when Brown tried to put an inside move on him, Watson caught him off-balance and knocked him down. Now, if Watson’s playing the off-the-line, motion-heavy H-back role, this stuff is less relevant. But if he’s playing the on-the-line Y spot that Daniel Graham used to inhabit, it might be because of these types of improvements.

– Another guy who looked real solid in pass pro was Kevin Faulk. That’s to be expected, yes, but it’s also interesting to see how technique makes up for his lack of size. Here’s an example – Faulk matched with Corey Mays, an inside ‘backer both bigger and taller than he. And Faulk used that to his advantage. Mays, coming between the bags, tried to bull rush Faulk, and the third-down specialist simply sunk his hips and got underneath linebacker, then shuffled his feet outside to guide the defender away from the quarterback. The fact that he was able to gain leverage, control the blocker and keep his balance in that situation was impressive.

– Brandon Meriweather continues to work in at corner, and he looks the part, even moreso than he does at safety. There’s a learning curve, sure, and there were catches made on him, but there were no complete breakdowns as might be expected if a player’s out of place. A factor here has to be the team’s depth at safety, with Rodney Harrison, Eugene Wilson, Artrell Hawkins and the rising James Sanders all on board, and the lack thereof at corner.

- It’s been said before, but Kevin Faulk really does have receiver skills when he gets downfield. In skeleton drills, Faulk ran a wheel route down the left sideline and adjust to catch a ball dropped right over his head, with Tedy Bruschi on his inside hip and Ellis Hobbs over the top to his outside. Faulk pressed the ball to his chest, braced for the collision and stumble out of bounds while holding on to the ball.

– We got a Moss Minute for you, two of them actually with contrasting results. On one play in third-down work, Tom Brady blistered a ball to Moss, running a streak just outside the hash, that slipped through a small window separating underneath man Randall Gay and James Sanders over the top. Both defenders lunged for the ball, and Moss cradled his hands out to yank it in. But on the next play, things didn’t look as smooth. At about 12 yards, Moss broke to the post and Brady threw to the flag, in an obvious bit of miscommunication. Meriweather, reading Brady’s eyes, collided with Moss on the play while trying to make his way to the throw.

- A couple more notes: The hit of the day had to be a collision in the B gap between Bruschi and Sammy Morris. The running back hit the hole and Bruschi came free into it, creating a helmet-to-helmet impact that knocked Morris’ hat off. … The ill-timed ovations continue – a day after the offense was cheered while running a lap, Junior Seau got a similar reception in the same circumstances. It was his reward for jumping offsides. … Moss made the type of catch he’s know for late in the workout, while running a fly route underneath a Brady rainbow. The receiver reached over the top of Gemara Williams to pluck the ball away from the corner.

– And finally, a quick piece of respect paid to Bill Walsh, who passed away today at 75. Growing up, to me, Walsh was the standard for coaches and his impact continues to be felt in the NFL, with plenty of teams still running variations of the power-passing, zone-running West Coast offense he helped father. If you’ve heard Bill Belichick speak on Paul Brown, it’d certainly seem like he’d have a boatload of admiration for Walsh, a protege of Brown’s who helped advance the revolutionary offensive innovations of the legendary coach. Two years ago, in a film session with the media, Belichick showed tape of Joe Montana running that offense and spoke to how difficult Walsh’s attack was to defend when he was the Giants defensive coordinator in the 1980s.

Click to expand...