NDinL.A.
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The media covered yetserday's practice, so there's no reason to rehash what they already wrote. It was a boring practice anyway, with the team, as CoachD put it, with dead legs and the coaches dialing things back. But the media had to leave before the best part of practice. Here’s what they missed, from a fan’s perspective:
The team broke off into 11 on 11, no tackling. There was a lot of mixing and matching with ones and twos. Here are the plays:
- Folston with a nice run up the middle. It’s clear that he and Bryant are the two choices at RB, at least based on this practice.
- Good defense forces an incomplete from Golson.
- Jaylon Smith blitzes on the right side, and absolutely TRUCKS Folston, then forces Golson to throw quickly and incomplete. Apparently a video is out showing the play. You should check it out. It is naaaaaasty. Alford chewed out Folston good after the play.
- I forget what happened on the next play, but I remember Stanley dominated Day (it was a pass play). REALLY good protection from Stanley.
- Next play, Day gets leverage on McGlinchey (playing LT with the 2’s), puts him on his fanny and gets the sack. Hell of a play by Day; absolutely abused the big guy.
- Safety blitz from Hardy and he gets the sack on Zaire against the 2’s.
- Zaire gorgeous bomb to Chris Brown, who beat Watkins and……he dropped it.
- Zaire scrambles and has a nice run up the middle. He really is a nice runner.
- Zaire misses a corner blitz from his blind side. Never saw it coming, even though Holmes was trying hard to get his attention. But Zaire never even looked to that side a 2nd time pre-snap. Jalen Brown started sliding over too early and tipped the blitz but Zaire missed him and got sacked (also made a poor throw after the sack).
They FINALLY went to tackling for the last part of the practice, which worked on red-zone plays with 8 seconds left on the clock. They started at around the 5 yd line I believe.
- Golson pressured and forced to scramble left. Onwualu with a nice knock down of the pass in the end-zone. (I didn’t see much of Turner this practice as far as making plays, but Onwualu was in on a lot of plays.)
- Zaire also pressured, to his right, scrambled and forced a pass towards the back of the end zone, which was picked by Shumate. Great play by 22.
- Golson, play-action to Ben Koyack for a TD. Beautiful play.
- But Brindza doinks the extra point off the post.
- Zaire’s first play after the INT, slightly pressured, throws it seemingly 20 rows into the stands. As my friend noted, shades of Nate Montana vs. Michigan.
- In these next plays, we see what Kelly means when he says that Luatua will line up as an H-back (basically a fullback). The H-Back lined up about behind the RT in this formation. Unfortunately for Bryant, his H-back was a walk-on. On this play though, Bryant almost scored before getting stopped just short off the goal-line.
- Kizer, roll-out left across his body, incomplete. Not a horrible throw but he let it get away from him and over-threw it.
- Option Left with the walk-on FB, Schmidt avoids him and blows up Bryant for a big loss.
- Option right, but Koyack in as the FB, and Onwualu blows it up for another loss. I have to think the defense knew what was coming based on alignment.
- Option right, Cam almost scores but gets crushed (I mean, hammered) near the sidelines by Utopo. Cam really slow to get up…gets checked by the trainer for what seems to be a collarbone issue. They check him for a few minutes and run him threw a series of tests. But he seemed to be OK.
- Play-action, Golson scrambles all over the place and eventually ‘sacked’. Great defense as nobody was open.
- Play-action, Koyack TD to end practice.
********
Some other quick notes:
- Diaco worked on turnover drills, but nothing ever jumped out at me and it didn’t seem like a point of emphasis (unlike Alford’s ball security emphasis, for example). But I really liked Van Gorder’s drills for creating and taking advantage of turnovers. I don’t see any way we don’t do better in the turnover dept this year, with the pressure defense and the emphasis on creating turnovers.
- The 2 best pass catchers, by far, are Chris Brown and Ben Koyack. Koyack is just a beast out there and is primed for a huge year. And I understand the hesitance on crowning Chris Brown, but I’ve been on his bandwagon since the spring, where he was abusing any corner that he faced, Russell included. It’s continued this summer, and I see him being a national name this year. Someone else has to step up though if DD is indeed out for the year. Fuller, Robinson, someone.
The team broke off into 11 on 11, no tackling. There was a lot of mixing and matching with ones and twos. Here are the plays:
- Folston with a nice run up the middle. It’s clear that he and Bryant are the two choices at RB, at least based on this practice.
- Good defense forces an incomplete from Golson.
- Jaylon Smith blitzes on the right side, and absolutely TRUCKS Folston, then forces Golson to throw quickly and incomplete. Apparently a video is out showing the play. You should check it out. It is naaaaaasty. Alford chewed out Folston good after the play.
- I forget what happened on the next play, but I remember Stanley dominated Day (it was a pass play). REALLY good protection from Stanley.
- Next play, Day gets leverage on McGlinchey (playing LT with the 2’s), puts him on his fanny and gets the sack. Hell of a play by Day; absolutely abused the big guy.
- Safety blitz from Hardy and he gets the sack on Zaire against the 2’s.
- Zaire gorgeous bomb to Chris Brown, who beat Watkins and……he dropped it.
- Zaire scrambles and has a nice run up the middle. He really is a nice runner.
- Zaire misses a corner blitz from his blind side. Never saw it coming, even though Holmes was trying hard to get his attention. But Zaire never even looked to that side a 2nd time pre-snap. Jalen Brown started sliding over too early and tipped the blitz but Zaire missed him and got sacked (also made a poor throw after the sack).
They FINALLY went to tackling for the last part of the practice, which worked on red-zone plays with 8 seconds left on the clock. They started at around the 5 yd line I believe.
- Golson pressured and forced to scramble left. Onwualu with a nice knock down of the pass in the end-zone. (I didn’t see much of Turner this practice as far as making plays, but Onwualu was in on a lot of plays.)
- Zaire also pressured, to his right, scrambled and forced a pass towards the back of the end zone, which was picked by Shumate. Great play by 22.
- Golson, play-action to Ben Koyack for a TD. Beautiful play.
- But Brindza doinks the extra point off the post.
- Zaire’s first play after the INT, slightly pressured, throws it seemingly 20 rows into the stands. As my friend noted, shades of Nate Montana vs. Michigan.
- In these next plays, we see what Kelly means when he says that Luatua will line up as an H-back (basically a fullback). The H-Back lined up about behind the RT in this formation. Unfortunately for Bryant, his H-back was a walk-on. On this play though, Bryant almost scored before getting stopped just short off the goal-line.
- Kizer, roll-out left across his body, incomplete. Not a horrible throw but he let it get away from him and over-threw it.
- Option Left with the walk-on FB, Schmidt avoids him and blows up Bryant for a big loss.
- Option right, but Koyack in as the FB, and Onwualu blows it up for another loss. I have to think the defense knew what was coming based on alignment.
- Option right, Cam almost scores but gets crushed (I mean, hammered) near the sidelines by Utopo. Cam really slow to get up…gets checked by the trainer for what seems to be a collarbone issue. They check him for a few minutes and run him threw a series of tests. But he seemed to be OK.
- Play-action, Golson scrambles all over the place and eventually ‘sacked’. Great defense as nobody was open.
- Play-action, Koyack TD to end practice.
********
Some other quick notes:
- Diaco worked on turnover drills, but nothing ever jumped out at me and it didn’t seem like a point of emphasis (unlike Alford’s ball security emphasis, for example). But I really liked Van Gorder’s drills for creating and taking advantage of turnovers. I don’t see any way we don’t do better in the turnover dept this year, with the pressure defense and the emphasis on creating turnovers.
- The 2 best pass catchers, by far, are Chris Brown and Ben Koyack. Koyack is just a beast out there and is primed for a huge year. And I understand the hesitance on crowning Chris Brown, but I’ve been on his bandwagon since the spring, where he was abusing any corner that he faced, Russell included. It’s continued this summer, and I see him being a national name this year. Someone else has to step up though if DD is indeed out for the year. Fuller, Robinson, someone.
