Saints Camp Notes

[rajncajn]

Saints camp has opened and as I did last year I will pass on to you the notes taken from Saints fans & analysts that don't normally make it to the mainstream media. I will make whatever attempts I can to interpret the reports or to answer any questions I can.

 

Again, these are not my reports, I'm only relaying the info posted with their approval. I've also bolded a few of the more important bits of info.

First off, noticeably absent were Usama Young and Bryan Young on the Bikes.

Stinch was out with a groin pull and Nesbitt was also missing in action. Both joined the team in shorts and spamshirts only with no contact or action in the last 15 -20 minutes.

 

O-linemen-Pettiti filled in for Stinchcomb, Nesbit covered by committee, though mostly Andy Alleman.

 

Fast paced action today moving from drill to drill, players in full gear. For the most part, offense in white, defense in black.

 

Punters duel:

 

Early (very early) impressions. Unless something changes, Weatherford may have his hands full. This kid Chris Hanson can boom the punts.

 

Receivers:

 

This is going to be a good one, as all indicators led up to. Colston looked practically unstoppable, doing a good job of getting his body in proper position, but a lot of the drill where I got to see him were against open air. There may even be a sleeper in the group in Tramain Hall. Dude is fast and has excellent YAC skills. He is so quick, he left covering DB's who were in proper position behind him after turning with the catch. They also had him receiving punts with Lance Moore and Bush. Copper was outstanding, and Moore looked good,as did Jamal Jones. They all seemed to excel in receiving drills. There were many fewer dropped balls than last year this early.

Devery started off slow, dropping his first pass in a receivers only drill, but afterwards, he showed remarkable hands speed and feet on the sidelines. Colston didn't really have much chance as most of the reads went away from him during drills, but he did well when he did have a chance.

Lance Moore in full O vs. D had one really sweet fly when he blew by everyone for a bomb thrown by Martin. David Patten seems to have been working with Drew already, because their timing looked very good. Jamaal Jones also looked good. Newbies McKnight and Hosack looked OK. Hosack is big and tall, but seems to run very lanky without much strength. If he bulks, look out. He looks to have excellent hands.

 

Meachem? What knee? Kid looked great. He made good reads and had several good grabs. At times he looked a little confused, but that was to be expected, after missing some of the OTA time. Main thing is that he is showing no ill signs of the knee injury.

 

QB's Brees was himself. Sharp crisp throws that were on the money. Then there is the rest of the bunch. All of them showed bits of brilliance, followed by poor choices.

Palko can really move in the backfield. He is a scrambler. One gets the feeling that he has eyes on the side and in the back of his head. Whether that will help in game situations remains to be seen. Fife looks good. It would not surprise me to see Martin as the odd man out with his age. If all were the same age, I would say Martin #2 and then Palko as a project. With Martin's age, I think Fife has the nod for # 2 BUT IT IS EARLY!

 

RB's Pittman may still be lost, but I didn't see a lot of good things from him. Maybe it will take a while for the learning curve to kick in. Deuce looked trim and ready, and Bush was burning the field up. Didn't see much else from the group as they didn't work extensively today on specifics, and when they did, they were hidden from view. Stecker did a good job receiving out of the backfield, but I didn't see any real great runs. Karney was Karney. He was running, blocking and coming out of the backfield for passes from every direction.

 

DB's McKenzie is McKenzie. He seemed to be in place and have really quick breaks and acceleration on the few drills they did. He also showed good hands in the INT dept. Jason David looks good. I don't think, (still early) he will have any trouble taking the spot from Freddy T. The big surprise here was Chris Reis. He was a ball hawk, as was Kevin K. Harper doesn't look like he missed a step, following the injury, but again it is early. He was constantly in the right place at the right time.

 

LB's Simoneau looks like he is on a mission, as does Fujita. These two were everywhere in flowing to the ball in every drill I saw.Simmons was also motor on go, go, go!

Trev Faluk looked good in Special Team play, but that is where he will have to make the squad. Dhani Jones looks like a great pickup. I liked what I saw from him. Quick recognition and quick to the ball. Shanle was out there, but I honestly never saw anything develop to his side while he was lined up. The others were so so.

 

Big Boys: Offense

 

Jamal Brown is a beast. He looks like he is coming in with a chip on his shoulder, though I couldn't tell you why. Faine shows no age whatsover. He stood up Hollis Thomas on one play where I thought nothing would stop Thomas from getting through. Strief needs to continue working on footwork and handwork, but is looking much improved. Jahri Evans is a beast. He will get the attention of the rest of the league that he should have gotten last year. Alleman is going to be very good as well. He has a very low center of gravity and does not get beat to the point of attack very often. Once he learns to protect himself from the myriad of moves put on by the defenders he will be a beast. footwork and handwork are what he needs to work on.

 

Defense: Hollis Thomas ran very well in his conditioning this morning. He showed no signs of fatigue that I could see. He was a load, and held his own very well. It was obvious that he needed help in pass rush situations, but game planning should take care of that. Will Smith and Charles Grant were monsters. Both put a lot of pressure when they went. Will blew up J. Brown on one play and the whole crowd ooohed and aaahed.

Grant was pretty much the same. Don't expect him to take the year off because of his new contract. Ninkovich didn't show much, but I didn't see him make many mistakes either.

In the interior, Leisle and Clancy seemed to show out the most. Boykin looks to have his fire back, and it remains to be seen whether the year off will hurt his chances of making the squad.Lance Legree, and Antwan Lake also showed flashes of good footwork to get to the QB dummy in drills against the O-line.

 

TE's Eric Johnson can forevermore catch the ball. Miller and Campbell also looked good, the big question here is who will step up to be the blocker that Sean Payton is looking for.

 

Disclaimer: Others not mentioned either weren't noticed as doing anything outstanding or were working simultaneously on the other field while I watched the bunch above. I did NOT see any glaring weaknesses at receiver, i.e. missed passes on a regular basis from anyone like I did last year. If DH does indeed have the dropsies cured, look out. This offense will be unstoppable.

 

More this afternoon.

[DaFranchise777]

Thanks rajncajn!

[Hat Trick]

Is Fujita really flourishing down there? He seemed avg at best in KC and DAL ( I believe).

[rajncajn]

Is Fujita really flourishing down there? He seemed avg at best in KC and DAL ( I believe).

Fujita had a great season last year & was one of the few strong side LBers in the leauge that were considered worth of a fantasy roster spot. It seems that he has finally found his place in the NFL. Yesterday after conditioning drills the strength coach called him a "machine" and said he didn't think he even broke a sweat all day. Take a look at the link below...the video on the right titled "Conditioning Test", the dude looks HUGH. http://www.neworleanssaints.com/Articles/2...ing%20Test.aspx

[Hat Trick]

Fujita had a great season last year & was one of the few strong side LBers in the leauge that were considered worth of a fantasy roster spot. It seems that he has finally found his place in the NFL. Yesterday after conditioning drills the strength coach called him a "machine" and said he didn't think he even broke a sweat all day. Take a look at the link below...the video on the right titled "Conditioning Test", the dude looks HUGH. http://www.neworleanssaints.com/Articles/2...ing%20Test.aspx

 

Cool, more often than not he was lost on the field, maybe now that he's grown up he's figured out where he needs to be, or the defense fits him better

[rajncajn]

Saints Training Camp 2007

Friday, July 27

 

 

 

Any sort of instant analysis is pretty unfair at this point. It’s only the first day, you really have to look for trends and see who emerges towards the finish line rather then focus in on single incidents these first days. Beyond which, I’m one guy who can’t watch the whole field or even rewatch anything I do see on film. So at best you’re getting the briefest of impressions.

 

But just because it isn’t fair doesn’t mean it isn’t fun

 

Day One Winners

 

Jason David – Looked extremely fast and extremely quick. Showed how much of a player he was in the afternoon session as well with a couple of great grabs in the INT drills and an incredible pass deflection in the full-speed drills. The pass deflection in particular was impressive because of how far up in the air he got to get it. While he isn’t a very physical corner at all his leaping ability puts to rest most of my doubts about his height.

 

David Patten – I didn’t watch a lot of him in the morning session but he was particularly impressive in the full-speed afternoon drills. Ran some impressive routes and showed really good speed on them as well. Got great separation on a hitch and then just blew the doors off the defense on a long pass from Brees.

 

Pierre Thomas – I wasn’t to impressed with his running, saw him run into the offensive line a few times instead of cutting back, but showed really good hands and great speed. The key to Thomas’ roster spot is going to be how well he does on kick returns, but he might be showing enough offensively that he can beat out Stecker and Branch.

 

Tumaine Hall – I hesitate to put him down because I don’t want to create a training camp “beast”. It’s highly unlikely he makes the roster. But I write what I saw and I have Tumaine’s name down in my notebook and awful lot. He burned on routes Anwhar Phillips, Jason Craft, and David Jones (the David Jones one in particular was impressive). Not exactly murderers row but he made a number of plays nonetheless. He also dropped multiple balls in the wide receiver drills, so figure that one out. If I had to compare him to someone right now I would say he most resembles Jamal Jones from last year. That said, we have the Jamal Jones of this year among other players, so I doubt he’ll make the final cut.

 

Day One Losers

 

Jason Fife – Threw a few picks and seemed to hesitate instead of getting the ball out quickly. It’s difficult to say too much about QBs until you see them run an offense against a real defense in a real game situation, and even then you typically need a bigger “sample” to judge QBs then for other positions…but that said I can’t say that Fife really helped himself that much. Palko wasn’t that accurate either but Fife is supposed to have the leg up since he has a year under his belt.

 

Fred Thomas – Like Tumaine Hall I almost hesistate to even post this. But Freddie T had a number of bad plays and not very many outstanding ones. The Patten hitch was on FT and he struggled in the morning session against Devery and Meachem. To be fair, that’s a difficult draw and please keep in mind this is just the beginning of camp. That said in all 3 cases it looked like Fred T was playing the deep pass all the way and got caught napping on the underneath routes. He could still be struggling with his overall confidence.

 

Chris Reis – He didn’t look half bad in the morning session but appeared to have hands of stone in the afternoon session. Dropped a lot of passes in the DB INT drills.

 

 

By and large though the entire team looked pretty good for the first day of camp. One of the most notably things about a Sean Payton Training Camp is the crisp (and brisk) business-like pace. Players go from one drill to the next pretty quickly and without a ton of yelling and never sustained. The attitude seems to be one of “you either get it or you’re left behind”. The effect, I’m guessing, is a fair amount of mental pressure on the players. You need to know where you are going and what you are doing and get on it quickly, You do not want to appear lost out there. And by and large most of the players didn’t. From this fan’s perspective everything really appeared to go smoothly. Maybe it’s a cliché but you see the hallmarks of a “well coached team” even from day 1 of training camp.

 

We seemed to put a pretty good emphasis on special teams, running lengthy punting drills in the morning and field goal drills in the afternoon. Players rotated in and out an awful lot, so you didn’t get to see any individual player for any sustained time, but you got to see lots of different match ups.

 

All in all I’m excited about tomorrow and hopeful to see even more hitting and full-speed offense-on-defense type drills.

 

Other random tidbits

- Saw Charles Grant put Pettiti on his put. Just straight shoved him to the ground.

 

- Grant also blew by Pettiti. I really only got to pay attention the line play the final part of the afternoon practice. The field level view really inhibits you from seeing much and I was keying in on the CBs and WRs anyways. So I saw only 5 or so snaps watching Grant vs Pettiti. Grant still looked impressive

 

- Meachem was surprisingly physical with McKenzie. Honestly I admit being wrong. In just a day Meachem's proving to be a different receiver then I initially thought. I was real impressed with him giving McKenzie as good as he was getting.

 

- Clancy lined up as the NT behind Thomas.

 

- Watched Porter some more. Did a good job staying with his WR. Looks like a track player. Andrus feels Porter is the fastest player on the field, I don't see him being faster then Henderson but that should still tell you what his speed looks to be.

 

- Bush continues to make tacklers look silly (Simoneau the most recent victim)

 

- I finally watched Roman Harper some. Didn't have any spectacular plays but he was cutting and changing direction fine so I guess he's all healed up.

 

- Anwhar got beat my Tumaine, but Fife under threw the pass and it went right too Anwhar. Who dropped it. So 2 strikes on one play.

 

- Pierre Thomas got to show some open field ability, juked past Kaesviharn on one play.

 

- Saw Branch line-up briefly at FB. I'm going to make it a point tomorrow to look out for him more at that position.

[Randall]

I read this morning the defense will focus on turnovers this year. If they step up your team could go a long way.

 

Charles Grant – I should probably mention him here finally. I’ve been trying not to focus on the marquee players and it’s hard to refer to a guy who is secure in a starting position and a new long-term contract as a “winner” because of a training camp battle but…he has completely dominated Rob Petitti for two days now and it’s been difficult to not notice. Some of this is the level of competition of course, but it’s pretty evident Grant isn’t resting on his new deal either. It’ll be a key battle to watch when Stinchomb comes back,

 

 

That's good news.

[rajncajn]

I read this morning the defense will focus on turnovers this year. If they step up your team could go a long way.

 

Charles Grant – I should probably mention him here finally. I’ve been trying not to focus on the marquee players and it’s hard to refer to a guy who is secure in a starting position and a new long-term contract as a “winner” because of a training camp battle but…he has completely dominated Rob Petitti for two days now and it’s been difficult to not notice. Some of this is the level of competition of course, but it’s pretty evident Grant isn’t resting on his new deal either. It’ll be a key battle to watch when Stinchomb comes back,

That's good news.

Yep, posted that in my 7/28 thread. The focus this year is definitely going to be on creating more turnovers & from what I've heard it's showing in camp. The DBs are getting their hands on the ball a lot.