Well, I saw the preseaon game and I gotta tell ya...

[donkhater]

...It's about what I expected.

After following the game via the thread last night, I was prepared for the keystone cops. I thought they looked mediocre. Are they ready to compete for a playoff spot? Of course not. The chicken littles on this board need to come to grips to what this team is in the midst of. Rebuilding. Two units stood out as especially underwhelming:

Special teams: Why this continues to be the bane of this team boggles the mind. Outside of Colquitt, this continues to be one sad unit. They were responsible for the crappy field position (both ways) the whole first half and of course gave up the TD.

O-line: One of (if not the worst) unit from last season was without its #1 pick and looked like it. This team doesn't have the type of depth to withstand any type of injury to the starters. Croyle never really had much time to pass and allowed the sack that resulted in the fumble and TD. No question. These guys have to improve on the fly.


Outside of those shortcomings, I thought the rest of the play was OK, just not overwhelming. The defense allowed a couple runs to Ricky and of course the TD pass, but the few pass plays Pennington did complete he was flushed from the pocket and was hit as he threw (on the TD). They are starting to get to the QB, they just have to complete the play. The goal line stand was teriffic and really didn't allow any other extended drives the first three quarters.

People cited DJ as playing well, and he did, but he was slow in getting depth on the TD catch. The defensive player that stood out to me was Brandon Flowers. He was in on virtually every tackle seemingly and had good coverage most of the night. He is a definate keeper.

The safety play seemed inconsistent and I actually liked the moves I saw out of Hali even though he didn't get to the QB. It's the nimblest I've seen him in two years.

Bowe disappointed and LJ is looking for the homerun too much. People knock his blocking, but there isn't any RB in football that likely going to succeed in blocking a 280 lb OLB/DE.

For some reason I keep wanting to not like Kolby Smith (I don't know why), but the guy keeps on chugging away. He is really a Kimble Anders clone isn't he? Does a little of everything.

Now to Croyle. People bitch about him dinking and dunking then bitch about him holding on to the ball. He can't win. The dude has no time and when he did, the WR were not open. Herm said something to this effect at halftime how they couldn't get off man coverage.

Croyle's stats last season were comparable to Matt Schaub's, who most people feel is a more than competent QB and he's been in the league two seasons longer.

Bottom line is, I'd rather watch a young fast team struggle through the year than an old slow one, which is what last season was. There are going to be a number of games like this this season and some games they are going to look pretty good. A young team is usually very inconsistent and I expect this one isn't going to be any different. But I AM looking forward to seeing these young guys play and watch their improvement.