1) Assuming there is nothing to the Gregory rumor, our defensive ends, at least the top 3, look really good. Lawrence is Lawrence. Gregory was impressive. Charlton, not his best game, but other than the offsides, he didn't do anything noteworthy in terms of dumb play. Armstrong and Tapper didn't flash much, but those guys would be counted on as 4th and 5th DEs, and I can live with that.
2) Our outside CBs are legit. Both Awuzie and Jones have upper echelon skills and pairing them with Richard might pay off big time. In the slot, Lewis played decently and the best news is I never heard Brown's name, which is a good thing since he likes to pick up penalties. Ward made a few nice plays. Overall, the starting CBs should be great and depth should be decent.
3) I thought Looney held up well. It will be a different story in two weeks going against a really good Carolina front seven, but overall, he did nothing last night that made me worry. Williams seemed to play better last night as well but then again it's tough to tell with the mismatched OL.
4) The linebackers athleticism is certainly noticeable. Smith is so quick. He had a couple of plays that I thought he overran and the RB cut back for a decent gain, but overall with him, Thomas and then adding Lee and hopefully LVE, you have four guys that can move very well at the LB spot.
5) I was big on Scarborough but as others have noted correctly, Jackson seems like the better back now. Scarborough just looks to so and deliberate when he gets the ball. Now when he gets a head of steam going, he's a tough runner but at times it looked like he had an opportunity to get 3-4 yards by plowing ahead and kind of hesitated waiting for a hole to open up and he gained zero yards.
On the flipside...........
1) We really don't have a competent backup QB. White looked better than Rush but neither is ready to be a backup in a live NFL game. We might have one of the worst QB situations in the NFL from that perspective. Last night the Cardinals had Bradford, Glennon and Rosen. That depth dwarfs ours. I wonder what QBs might hit the waiver wire?
2) Gotta admit I am getting a bit nervous on Fleming. He's looked anywhere from poor to average. I thought he was a key signing but now I worry we may still have a swing tackle issue.
3) TE is a total wasteland and this front office botched that position IMO. In an offseason where they talked about getting Prescott as much help as they could, to give him this TE grouping is pretty sad. Gathers, with all his flaws, might be the best TE of the group and there was chatter he might not even make the 53.
4) S is another screw up by the front office. They had depth issues before they even went into August camp and let many of the, at least competent, names at S in FA run out and sign very friendly deals with other teams. I watched Jeron Johnson a bit last night and he was pretty bad. But that's to be expected when you sign a guy who hasn't played football in a year. Huff looked lost. Robinson? ehhh. Frazier being hurt is a pretty big deal and frankly, he's a limited S himself. This front office seems to pride itself on not panicking but guess what? It might be time to panic a bit.
5) I still worry about our DTs holding up in the run game. Woods has played decently and Crawford looked decent last night, but I worry about his size holding up over the course of a season. And what's behind Woods at the 1 Tech is really concerning. Price looks pretty bad. Ross? Yeah, no. Getting Collins back and getting a lot of reps should help (but they may play him again at the 1 Tech). Ward? Was he hurt last night? I think it's a shame that we finally have some playmakers at DE, LB and CB but that could be undone by poor choices at DT and S.
