Camp Report 30 July 2007

[PhillyPhreak54]

Ah, yes. Football is back! Today was my first day up at Lehigh and I must say there is not a whole lot of better ways to spend a lazy summer day than lounging at Lehigh and taking everything in. This was my first of three trips this year. I will be going on vacation soon so I could not swing more than three days up there, which bums me out a bit but hell I need a real vacation. Generally my first day up has been day one of hitting, but I had to settle for going up today rather than Wednesday. So it was hard for me to really get a sense of what some guys can do simply because there just isn't a whole lot of action going on yet. Spads was kind enough to invite me to join him on TCL and I enjoyed that very much. We talked about several things and I had a good time doing it. I will be posting photos later on. I just have to get them hosted and sift through the 100+ I took today. Anyways, onto the updates;

1. The first thing to talk about was as I was sitting in the stands watching Sav Rocca punt, he shanked one really bad. I mean to the point of where it bounced into the stands. A kid gets the ball and after a few minutes our old friend #81 Charles Johnson, who is interning with the team as a coach, comes over to get the ball back. So I yell to him "Come on CJ, don't take the ball away from the kid" and then he gets booed. However, the CSC security lady was kind enough to call down and get a Donovan McNabb autographed football for the guy, which was very cool of them to do.

2. Speaking of Sav Rocca, okay he shanked one or two. But let me tell you something - when he gets his leg into that ball, it flies. First off, dude is built like a brick-you-know-what-house. So he has the power to drive the ball a long way. And he knuckles it at times. If anyone has seen Ben Graham punt from the NYJ he deadens balls well. Rocca showed some of that. A few of the guys who they had back there catching punts had some trouble reading the spin on the ball and it took some funny hops. I honestly believe Sav is going to win this competition. Look, Dirk sucked last year. He was inconsistent and he also had some shankariffic punts. So all things being equal, I'll take Rocca's power and the occasional shank over Dirk's inconsistency. But the disclaimer must be made that we have not seen how Sav does with a rush bearing down on him. If he does win the job I have a feeling we're going to see him lay a few fellas out too. Akers likes to hit guys...Sav is going to kill someone.

3. The only guy who really didn't have issues catching Rocca's punts, and who was the standout today, was Jeremy Bloom. Not only is he fielding punts cleanly he is making tremendous strides as a WR. He runs some hard routes and really seems to be able to find the open areas. Once again I must stress that since this was a shorts and shells practice it is hard to really get a read, but he looked really good so far. But he also had a very nice TD grab late in practice.

4. Joining Bloom in fielding punts was JJ Outlaw, Rashad Barksdale and Bill Sampy. Sampy was the best of those guys.

5. Speaking of Sampy, and I wrote about him a little bit last year, he has some game. I remember the outrage on the boards when Spads mentioned him as a guy to watch in the off-season, but I must agree. He looks better than last year and I like the way he catches the ball. With his speed and special teams abilities he has a shot to make some noise this year. Will he make the team? Barring injury no. Simply because of the numbers at the position. Where does he fit in? Brown, Curtis, Baskett, Avant, G. Lewis and Bloom are ahead of him. But if a guy goes down, Sampy could help this football team, in my opinion.

6. I was eager to see Kevin Kolb. As I told Spads on the show, I , like many of us, were angered when they took him. I understand the move now, but I still wanted to see if this guy is worth the 36th pick. It's way too early to tell any of that, but I can tell you that he throws a nice catchable ball. Donovan throws a heavy ball on his short and intermediate routes. Kolb doesn't have as much juice on them and seems to put them in there nicely. He also has good mobility to his right and left and is accurate when rolling out. However, he is clearly the 4th guy on the depth chart right now. He was relegated to throwing check off's to backs in a drill while the offense was running some goal line stuff. After about 5 minutes Andy sent AJ down to run the junk and Kolb came up to get some real work in. Just from this one practice all I can say about what I saw from him is that so far so good. Obviously it is not fair to judge him as a franchise guy just yet but rather look for the mechanical aspect of his game and the field presence. Is he stuttering the calls? No. Does he have command of the huddle (meaning do the coaches have to repeat plays to him and call the huddle back)? No. I really didn't get to see him air it out though nor did I see his arm strength when throwing the famous 15-20 yard outs. I will check that stuff out next week.

7. Many of you all know I like to watch the OL and DL play during games and practices. Well, I couldn't do much of that simply because there isn't much going on in that department. Without the full gear on their sessions mainly consist of teaching and technique work. There was some 1-1 and 2-2 stuff, but nothing really good yet.

8. I did watch a lot of Abiamiri today though during his drills. I like the fact that he is a bigger DE and he seems to grasp leverage well. He isn't too high when rushing the passer nor does he seem to get off balance too much. But that may change when Runyan, Tra and Justice get their meat-hooks on him. But he plays low to the ground and has good lower body strength, which is necessary for the run defense part of the game.

9. Kelly Holcomb isn't bad either. He throws good spirals and also has good touch. As a matter of fact all three QBs there had a good session. Good catchable passes with not too many bad throws. The balls that did hit the ground were generally because a WR was in the wrong spot or dropped it.

10. Rashad Barksdale has some size to him, but I would classify him as raw. Really raw. The one thing I have to say that immediately stood out to me about him was that he better work on his ability to jam guys at the line and not get thrown off his bump coverage. In a photo I will post later you can see where he loses ground and struggles to recover afterwards. Dustin Fox and Nick Graham were ahead of him from what I could tell right now.

11. Jim Johnson was barking at Akeem Jordan pretty good towards the end of the session. Apparently Jordan did not read a set correctly and was out of position. Jim told him "what are you doing?!?!? You better think! Were trying to run something here...we've got a split back and where are YOU?!"

12. I would classify these rookies and selected vets sessions as extended mini-camps to be honest. There is no real playbook install, no real contact or anything like that. It is mostly a slower paced session where teaching is emphasized. You can see the position coaches spending more one on one time with guys and taking time to correct the mistakes. When the real camp starts, that is limited and guys are expected to know what's up. If they struggle or don't know what they are supposed to do, it's "get out and the next guy get in there" mentality.

13. Stewart Bradley has some size to him. It is nice to finally have some SAM 'backers who can physically match up with TEs and taking on the lead blockers. Who knows how Gocong (who was held out today along with McNabb to rest up for when everyone else gets there) and Bradley will perform, but at least they look the part. No more undersized garbage named Dhani Jones masquerading as an NFL player. A guy who I was really intrigued by last year was Tank Daniels. He is also lining up at SAM, but was not there today. I will be able to get a better read on these three guys next week.

14. I mentioned Charles Johnson interning earlier...well, Mike Caldwell and Otis "my man" Smith are also helping out. After practice Caldwell was giving some one on one teaching to Bradley and Craig Kobel. He was talking to them about how to play the TE when he releases to certain sides and whatnot.

15. Stefan Rogers is a guy who intrigues me. He looked good last year and might be a guy who they take a long look at as a developmental player. He doesn't really pass the eye-test as a OT because he is somewhat slight compared to the massive OTs we're used to seeing. But he's apparently recovered well from his injury and hold his ground well. He went to Lambuth College. A little FYI on Lambuth; that was the college where former NYG Ron Dixon attended and the play that almost killed the Eagles (remember the hook and lateral?) was named "The Lambuth Special" because Dixon was the guy who had the ball. Thank you Bobby Taylor and Damon Moore for pushing him out of bounds at the 4 and helping save my heart. Anyways...

I think that is about it as far as today is concerned. As I mentioned before, it was hard to really get good info because not a whole lot was going on. It was great to see some actual football though. And as always, feel free to ask questions as it may help jog my memory if I have forgotten anything. Once I get the photos uploaded and hosted I wil post them in this thread.

[PhillyPhreak54]

[PhillyPhreak54]

Barksdale getting pimped

[PhillyPhreak54]

[PhillyPhreak54]

Okay, I am going to upload all of them eventually to the imageshack. To see them all just click on the link that says "see more photos from this user" or something like that and it will show them all.

[MDS]

Stop talking to yourself.

[Dillen]

No.

[PhillyPhreak54]

I must add about Tony Hunt...I forgot to add him earlier;

Hunt, and I mentioned this on TCL, isn't as big as folks think. I even thought he would be a little more bulkier, but he is built somewhat like Buck. I mentioned to Spads that if you tok their numbers and names off the jersey's they would be hard to tell apart physically.

He catches the ball well though...not really a body catcher, but rather uses his hands well.

Also, Iloa needs to work on his receiving skills a bit.

I cannot WAIT to see Hunt and Nasti Nate tee off on someone in the open field though.

Also...

Dereck Faulkner and Jermaine Jamison caught my eye as well. Jamison was a guy who was in camp last year and is a big body with some decent ability to catch the ball. Faulkner is a bigger body who can run well and made some nice grabs, specifically one on a deep ball.

[Munson]

Bloom is the new Greg Lewis, and Sampy will make the team over GLew. That's my prediction.

[PhillyPhreak54]

[Eaglez]

I miss Lehigh 

Did someone try to jump the kid with the autographed McNabb ball in the parking lot, Jay?

[methdeez]

Nice report meng. I am sorry to hear that you won't be making it up as much this year, but it will help in my goal to pay less attention to pre-season.

[Diomedes]

I will be going on vacation soon...

Peru?

[PhillyPhreak54]

I miss Lehigh 

Did someone try to jump the kid with the autographed McNabb ball in the parking lot, Jay?

Ha..no. But those autograph people annoy me, well, the adults who act like kids at least. You know the people who I'm talkin about.

Dio, yes. Texas too...

[Diomedes]

Dio, yes. Texas too...

Peru good, Texas bad.  Have a great time in Peru, hope you find a way to leave Texas even worse than you find it.

Thanks for the TC thoughts and pics.