saintswhodi

Preseason game 2 was definitely more encouraging than preseason game one. Definitely a lot of good things to see. Our offense actually drove the field for over 5 minutes and got a TD, against NE first team D. Our run blocking was stout, and our pass blocking was okay, although Jacox whiffed on several plays from what I saw. Even Brooks, for the most part, looked sharp. HE threw a couple of passes behind receivers and had that fumble that killed a red zone drive on 3rd and 2 so we had to settle for 3, but he looked sharp otherwise. Joe Horn, what's the deal? There was rumors of drops in camp and now in games too? The INT was all him, Brooks threw a nice pass on that one. I liked Stecker's running and Smith's running. Also Poole and Henderson looked good, Bouman finally did not look like a steaming turd, albeit against 3rd stringers and guys who prob won't be in the NFL next week. Jamaal Brown was a beast from the opening whistle.

On defense, where is the pass rush from our DEs? Seemed non-existent or late. And our LBs are leaving A LOT to be desired. I would have hated to see Dillon play. And I believe Flutie led the Pats to 13-17 points against our first team D. That can't happen. Fakhir got abused by whoever he was covering and whoever was the QB, Brady or Flutie. I hope Young will not be out long, cause he was playing well. And what can you say about Dwight Smith? I hope during the regular season if he gives us the ball already in FG range, we get more than 3 points. At the half, we were in the red zone 4 times and got one TD. IF the improvement continues like it did from the first preseason game, we should definitely raise that number.

Carney looks to be in mid-season form(despite the goalpost hitting extra point) and Berger is Berger. But out kick coverage is average-bad right now. We are giving up too much field on special teams. Where is McAfee and Gleason and Mitchell? And the sideline retunrs for Lewis need to go. Run up the middle guy. HE is giving up yards dancing the sidelines then ducking out when he is about to get hit. Seems like all our kickoffs went this way, and LEwis never looked to cut back inside for more yards. HE did a nice job though.

All in all, much happier about what I saw yesterday as compared to last week. We still have a long way to go, but just knowing our offense can drive the field on a good defense and control clock is a huge step in the right direction. Cut down on the penalties, and we may be going somewhere. Now we just gotta hope next week won't be a step back, and that Young comes back soon. I liked what he was doing on the field.

ssmitty

you are right sd, brooks looked sharp. in fact, downright good.......
at the half, 12 beers were gone and i think someone hit me with a hammer, but it must have been an inner lump, cause when i awoke, i could'nt find no outta one............
brady, gotta give it to him, makes it look easy.................
brooks was the main man i looked at besides jb and let me tell ya, i am not disappointed with that selection..............
brooks was pressured many times and he looked almost flawless escaping, getting rid of the ball, and stepping up to buy time.......
my man jammal, i just can't say enough.........
horn on the other hand has a bad case of holdiaitis, hope he takes his shots............
2nd and 3rd teams, someone else will have to comment, i was in la,la land.
now for the record, i know we are not showing much, and i hope we are'nt, but it ain't looking bad......................smitty

AllSaints

I was happy with the game Deuce had a good 1 our d-line was bad fakir was gettin killed but jammal brown wow he had a good game. Horn is more of a gameday reciever no need to worry bout that antwain smith had couple good runs. The 3 downs and longs when we were in shotgun and hand it to stecker i like that play it worked bout every time. We have to stop the presnap penalties. And the special teams couldnt stop that hobbs kid he was gettin to the 50 everytime.i think finch stoped him once but not too good on the special teams. Good Hustle by Horn when the interception happened too bad no one got it when it poped out. Nate poole i can tell that this guy can jump wow that jump at the goaline was awesome i wonder how high he was right there... Overall good game 4 new orleans May have been preseaosn but i think we needed a win and we got it.

I just want a pass rush... Is that so hard to find.... Apparently....

GoldenTomb

I concur with most of the views in this thread. I was impressed with AB. I just wish he wouldn't do that spin move thing whenever he decides to run....he's gonna get blindsided if he doesn't watch it. Other than that he was quite impressive. Now do it more consistently.

Dwight Smith....he's a ballhawk. He was impressive but he also could've disrupted that Flutie TD later in the 2nd...but that's nitpicking...it was just a great throw.

Fakhir Brown looked awful. They kept picking on him the whole time he was in the game.

spkb25

saintswhodi nice post. i agreew ith everything you say. room for improvement but nice step forward. i thought arron had a good game. joe is dropping some but i would think and hope that that will change come the season. i give him a litlle room to mess up because he always plays so hard for us. a.smith really seems to be a nice edition. i really like him as a number 2. i like what stecker can do in a limited roll. i actually liked that some dump off passes went for some gains for us. something to me we reaqlly haven't had. i thought jb played excellent. i even saw on a play that they pointed out that this guy was still driving a guy off the ball 10 yards down the field. i saw colby get the heck knocked out of him on one play that sprang a run. i think our lb's are leaving some to be desired. anyway we look better in my opinion then last preseason. man i hope it continues to get better the next two games and we come out playing well against carolina.

BoudinSandwich

It was a nice game. Unfortunately, the Patriots were pulling starters out even before the game started. I believe the whole reason our starters played as long as they did was to gel together. I don't believe Haslett did it just for a win. Maybe I'm just naive?

First thing is first. Aaron Brooks played almost flawlessly. He did fumble once, which killed a potential touchdown drive, but so did Horn.(More on Horn in a bit) Brooks seemed as if he had read this board before this game. He used his pocket protection correctly. He is still taking those deep drops back, but he does have long legs. However, Brooks was stepping up in the pocket and avoiding the blitz for most of the night. That alone was a major contributor to Brooks' success in the game. His accuracy was a bit off at times, but it was also right on the money other times. He played a very nice game and I hope to see him continue to use his offensive line like he did versus the Patriots. If he uses his blocking right, he's dangerous...and thats dangerous in a GOOD way.

Joe Horn missed the catch. He messed up again. Though, in mid-season, I seriously doubt we're going to see Horn miss as many catches. Joe Horn excells in critical situations and he is going to help this team more than he hurts it. Also, the effort he gave to get the ball back after the interception almost makes you want to forgive him for not making the catch. His effort alone almost got the ball right back for us. That is what a true team leader will do. Horn is struggling to make a few catches, but don't look for this to be a continuing problem. He'll hussle back with some big plays.

Deuce was once again slashing the defense. Our running game will be good this year as long as he's healthy.

Bouman played decent football. His play was par of the play of a 2nd or 3rd string quarterback. He didn't make dumb mistakes, but he also didn't do anything spectacular.

Our defensive rush was rampant! Unfortunately it was only that way against New England's backups. We were getting penetration, but we were not getting there fast enough. Hopefully this improves.

Our lineback corps is having difficulty right now. Maybe its because they're young, but these guys are not playing at NFL starter level. None of them are.

Dwight Smith and Mike McKenzie are the cornerstones of our defense. They are going to make huge, game winning plays for us this year. Unfortunately, our other defensive backs are a bit weak. What I plan on seeing this year is the opposing offense eating us up with passes while throwing the occaisional interception. We should have atleast 2 interceptions a game. We should also give up atleast two passing touchdowns a game. Our corners and linebackers need vast improvements.

As for Michael Lewis, its the Pre-season. I don't know if this is the case, but I personally would tell Lewis to do the same thing. If you see something opening take it, but run the sidelines and do NOT injure yourself.

Those are my thoughts.

LordOfEntropy

Agreed with all points. Kudo's to the team, it's no small achievement to perform as well as they did against first stringers in Foxboro. I was pleased.

Issues that still need to be addressed...

1 - The secondary coach needs to remind Fakir to look back for the ball. He had excellent position on some of those plays where he was burned, that Flutie pass in particular. He had the right position, he could've and should've made a play. But you can't do that if you never back look for the ball. I saw that happen more than once. And that's fixable - so fix it.

2 - LB play was very poor at times. In particular, Sedric Hodge (again) stood out to me. An example was him charging into the quarterback's face, totally free for the sack - and he misses.... Someone else had to make the tackle. It was a prime opportunity to cause a fumble. He never seems to make the big play. Another example of poor LB play was when that running back charged down the field for 40+ yards - after being stuck on the right side of the pile for about a full second. He should've been stopped there. So someone didn't cover their assignment, just behind Charles Grant. Overall the LB play still needs significant improvement.

3 - Jason Craft continues to slide on my radar. He made a nice play on a blitz, but I saw him getting burned too often on other plays. I'd like to slide J. Williams into his spot for the next preseason game and see what happens.

4 - John Carney needs to focus more of his work on PAT's. Although his fields goals have been just fine, I'm seeing too much of a pattern on these point after's.

5 - Discipline.... Still seeing too many pre-snap penalties early in the first quarter.

can anyone help me id this tune? it goes thwap thwap boom tch boom tch boom tch.

Qui a laissez sortir les chiens!

AllSaints

Nate Poole had the best catch of the night .... he got that touchdown that was great im still excited over it . . . . Maybe thats just me . ..

LordOfEntropy

Man oh man, no kidding. How high did that dude jump? 56 inches? Holy schizznet.

On a side note, regarding the Horn interception... Is it just me? I have to wonder, because no one else, not even the announcers, has mentioned it.

That ball hit Joe Horn first. It hit the defender second. It bounced off the ground third. It landed in the other defender's hands fourth. It was clear as day on the screen I watched.

Why has no one mentioned it? Are my eyes starting to go, or is it an HDTV thing?

BoudinSandwich

I was under the impression that the ball never hit the ground. To me it appeared that the "third bounce" was actually off of a player's body who happened to be laying on the ground. I could be wrong, though. Maybe it should have been challenged?