My meaningless thoughts on the game...

[Yakuza Rich]

- Romo wasn't perfect tonight and I'm not talking about the 1 incompletion. He missed a wide open Fasano for a TD out near the sideline that would've been a TD on Romo's last pass. Still, a very good performance overall by him.

- I actually think we'll be using the TE even more in this offense from the looks of it. It was nice to see Fasano being used.

- Julius still looks like Julius to me. He'll knock off a few nice quick hitters, but he just doesn't run well between the tackles. I thought Barber looked really good despite some spotty blocking. I think if Julius doesn't raise the bar this year, Garrett needs to at the very least split the carries evenly.

- Thompson has talent, but he's just so unrefined. Dances when he needs to explode into line and then will explode into the line when he needs to be patient. But, he's a solid kickoff returner and your 3rd string RB usually isn't worth their salt anyway.

- McGinest out 6 weeks for the Brown...just on ESPN News.

- Free played very well from my initial viewing. Surprisingly his run blocking was good. Hopefully his knee is okay.

- Uncle Pat from Cocktail is a very bitter man.

- Nice kickoffs by Grammy and Folk.

- We did blitz, but it was more or less just sending 5 guys straight up without anything too complex. Probably just trying to get Ware and Spencer ready. They did run a few complex blitz packages which were nice in design. There was one that would've worked perfectly as they ran a stunt with 1 of the ILB's and the RDE. But the RDE wound up tripping over the LB's foot and fell down.

- All in all a nice job here, but nothing to get too excited about. The Colts are notoriously horrible in preseason and...well...it's preseason. But the tackling was decent, there weren't missed assignments and it was far from a sloppy game which is rare for the 1st preseason game. There's some young talent there and hopefully Free is okay. I think the defense still has a ways to go before they start feeling comfortable. I'll have a charting review sometime this weekend.





YAKUZA

 

[Roughneck]

Ah, now it feels like football season.

Well down as usual Yakuza.

 

[Cbz40]

Thanks YR...Good stuff as always.

 

[TNCowboy]

Polar opposite on the RBs: I thought Julius looked good, save one run, and Barber looked sluggish until it was 3rd and long against the Colts' scrubs.

 

[parchy]

About Thompson... on his TD run, he actually put down his shoulder and plowed in. To me, that shows progress. He would have put down a juke and lost yardage last year.

He's still boring and unoriginal on kickoffs, though. Why didn't Austin get a shot tonight? Is Wade assuming he's the starter and Tyson has work to do to catch up?

 

[dallasfaniac]

About Thompson... on his TD run, he actually put down his shoulder and plowed in. To me, that shows progress. He would have put down a juke and lost yardage last year.

He's still boring and unoriginal on kickoffs, though. Why didn't Austin get a shot tonight? Is Wade assuming he's the starter and Tyson has work to do to catch up?

I'll watch it again, but it looked like the guy that Thompson bowled over was already being driven to the ground by an O-Lineman.

 

[Vintage]

What the Colts in preseason the past couple of years?

1-9? 1-10?

 

[cobra]

The way we looked and beating the defending Super Bowl champs is certainly not a guarentee that we are going to win it all.

But I look at it this way: suppose we got trounced. Or suppose we played them straight up.

I submit we beat them 1sts vs. 1sts, 2nds vs. 2nds and 3rds vs. 3rds.

Given the three options (better, same, worse), it certainly is a much better sign than if we got trounced.

Don't put too much into it, but it does mean something we didn't look bad and beat up on the defending Super Bowl champs. It means we aren't god awful.

 

[parchy]

What the Colts in preseason the past couple of years?

1-9? 1-10?

1-8 in their last nine, now.

But if we lose, we've got chicken littles everywhere saying how bad we suck. Catch 22 to the max.

 

[dmq]

Nice to see these posts again. My thought:
I was not happy with the Special Teams coverage. We need some work. We were really working the middle on the short passes. Turns out Fasano may not be a wasted pick. I am not impressed w/ any of our rb's. We are a good rb away from being a great offense. Tony Romo is the real deal. The guy went 10-11 in his first preseason. Man if he didn't go for TO on that play.....
I think we were vanilla on defense, so I am not worried about the lack of pressure.

 

[Vintage]

1-8 in their last nine, now.

But if we lose, we've got chicken littles everywhere saying how bad we suck. Catch 22 to the max.

Yeah, I know. I just wanted to mention it to put it in some perspective. The good news is no injuries, several guys like Free and Fasano played well, etc.

 

[ejthedj]

Marion did not look good in this game. He had two carries under 2 minutes for 29 yards. Otherwise, he had 9 carries for 15 yards. That is actually bad. Plus, 3 catches for 11 is nothing special.

Julius looked better, looked like the starter, just as Wade and Bill have concluded. He went 6/22 and 1/13.

Actually, tonight was even better proof of that. Against 1st stringers and in typical running situations, Barber was stuffed and Julius was not.


Everybody wants to love Barber more because he's infectious, but it's just not true that he should be the starter.

 

[Cowboy4ever]

Disagree about the backs.. i thought JJ looked pretty good for the first game. Made a nice move in the hole to get a decent run, look good coming out of the backfield for passes. Barber was Barber,, runs real aggressive.

I was impressed by Romo tonight.. seemed llike last year he would start slow and heat up.. he came out hot tonight.. hopefully that is a good sign.

Overall, for the first preseason game, I thought the team looked pretty good.

 

[dbair1967]

Polar opposite on the RBs: I thought Julius looked good, save one run, and Barber looked sluggish until it was 3rd and long against the Colts' scrubs.

I agree...I thought JuJo ran pretty well and MBIII looked ok, but he got off to a rough start

we have two good RB's...everyone needs to quit hating on one over the other...we're lucky to have two starting quality RB's

that said, I think JuJo is gonna have a big yr in this system

David

 

[Chocolate Lab]

I didn't see where Rich said anything about the score or winning.

The point is, we played a very clean game for a team with new coaches and systems on both offense and defense. Everyone from the starters to the third teamers executed well without a lot of mistakes and penalties.

And as for our backs, I give up. They are the human Rorschach test.

 

[dmq]

Julius is the better back. If this is a real game, I just think he would have broken one.

 

[jazzcat22]

About Thompson... on his TD run, he actually put down his shoulder and plowed in. To me, that shows progress. He would have put down a juke and lost yardage last year.

He's still boring and unoriginal on kickoffs, though. Why didn't Austin get a shot tonight? Is Wade assuming he's the starter and Tyson has work to do to catch up?

I was at the game, and yes, TT does not have any moves on his KO returns. If a hole is there, he may take it, but not every time. I seen [easy to judge from the stands, harder to see on the field] several holes he could have taken, or should have broken outside, like most good ones do. But he runs into the pile just about every time.

 

[Hoofbite]

Marion did not look good in this game. He had two carries under 2 minutes for 29 yards. Otherwise, he had 9 carries for 15 yards. That is actually bad. Plus, 3 catches for 11 is nothing special.

Julius looked better, looked like the starter, just as Wade and Bill have concluded. He went 6/22 and 1/13.

Actually, tonight was even better proof of that. Against 1st stringers and in typical running situations, Barber was stuffed and Julius was not.


Everybody wants to love Barber more because he's infectious, but it's just not true that he should be the starter.

How are you going to discount barbers best runs and say he did poorly without them and then not do the same for jones?

Neither really looked incredible. To be honest, I was expecting a little more for Julius. I know it might be asking a lot in the 1st preseason game but he talked the talk.

Taking this one single preseason game and saying it outweighs last year and using that to justify Jones as the starter is insane.

Julius should only remain the starter because Marion is excellent at what he does and when he does it.

 

[dbair1967]

- Romo pretty sharp, but blew two TD's to TE's

- OL play was pretty good...Free looks like a real find, hopefully he wont be out long

- 1st team D was good except for one play to Harrison...looked like busted coverage but there was no rush either

- kickoff coverage needs work, but it could be because they have alot of different guys out there that wont be there come week one...didnt really see who was where

- both kickers looked good save the one short kicoff by Folk...I kinda think we keep both guys

- Matt Moore showed maybe Jaworski did know what he was crowing about on draft weekend...but quit with the non sense of Moore being #2, it aint gonna happen this yr...

- we are loaded at WR, RB, TE, and LB...DL and OL look pretty solid too...still am unsure about the backups at DB, C and NT

- this looked like a talented, well coached team

- Brad Johnson has one of the weakest arms I have ever seen

not bad for a first time out...worst thing was Free potential knee injury, if he's ok this was as good an opener as we could hope for

David

 

[superpunk]

I thought Julius looked better tonight. He ran decent, still not strong, but he seemed to at least locate the holes well. He didn't always make anything out of it, and he had better blocking than Barber, but I thought he was the best back on the field tonight, in his performance.