I was at the practice today. Went with my Goddaughter, and her stepmom. A birthday present for myself. That's the good news.
Arrived at 8:30 and got into a line that was about a half mile from the gate. When the gate was opened, we wound up with seats on GL closest to the hill. And it was BAKING hot. The crowd literally cheered every time a cloud gave us some momentary cover. So now with seats, with a less-than-ideal view of the field I had to wait half hour waiting for the practice to start, and another half hour watching the always thrilling stretching and warm up segment of practice, with the highlight of that hour was watching the helicopter land. (it WAS pretty cool to watch up close)
It's been a few years since I was a regular visitor to camp practices. Anyway, given the bad seats, heat, and the fact they split practice so all I really got to see was the offense because the D was practicing on the far field and impossible to see and most of the one-on-one drills were held on the opposite GL, so, all I seem to see was more "indications" than actual fact. But here is what I saw this morning.
1. Maye can throw the damned ball. He wasn't perfect, but a high percentage of his throws were on target and on the few that weren't the WR's made the catches or at least had a chance for a completion. I recall only one pass that was simply overthrown and one crosser that was a miss. The offense SHOULD will a majority of the 7 on 7 work due to no rush and lots of open field for receivers, but Maye's accuracy still was special.
2. Talk about receiver depth. 2 guys who popped for me was surprisingly Mack Hollins and Kyle Williams. In drills, Mack seemed to be always open, and a lot of his routes had him deep downfield. Most of his catches came with Devito at QB, but he got some with Maye as well. I left practice thinking that Hollis can still be effective when he is in there.
The other guy who impressed me was KW. He showed a lot more "wiggle" than last season down field. He was always good at getting a decent release off the LOS, but in this practice, I saw more complexity in his route running downfield. He was a lot more than the "Kyle, you go long" guy he was last season. His hands seem to be strong, and we know he's fast, and while he might not bloom fully until next year, I am very hopeful Kyle Williams is going to be a real contributor sooner rather than later
3. Whenever I could, I would always try and watch the OL when they were going live. My first impression was that Campbell was much more physical than he was last season. He wasn't just mirroring guys, he was stoning them and keeping them on or near the LOS in pass protection. I was surprised to see him on someone's down list.
I also wanted to see how Wilson was doing as he readjusts to being back at C. He looked solid as well, and that's a VERY good DL he faced. Also, the run blocking looked crisper and real holes were being opened up. Again, not perfect, but getting visibly better overall.
4. The situation periods also visibly improved over what we saw in Colt's scrimmages and Philly has a much better overall D than the Colts had.
So, as a coach, the most important thing you want to see is IMPROVEMENT. Are the players working hard and responding to your coaching? Are you teaching them the right skills they need to excel? Are YOU putting into positions that they can succeed? That is what Vrabel and staff will hope to see when they go over the film of today's practice. Who is getting it, and who is not, and how can we get the guys in the latter category to upgrade their performances.
Tomorrow is a new day, and I'll let someone else tell me what is happening and sorry for the ****ty job I did today.
