Rams 17 Titans 16 Quick Recap

Agree with locker but he does need some work (as expected) glad we have #8

1) To damn early for Griffin to be losing his mind. Up to get his brain-dead plays out of the way in the preseason. WTF was up with him trying to fight?
2) Finnegan = great game. Loved the pressure from the nickel spot. Feisty but no stupidity. This is the Finnegan I like.
3) Defensive depth is better than offensive depth
4) Bad game from Locker, but this is a good thing! Brings us down to earth, and gives Jake some good experience. Jake definitely fares better working behind 1st team O line, but probably good for him to get a taste of constant pressure.
5) Harper looked good. Glad to see him stop running sideways and lay into some defenders
6) I think they were purposefully working on running
7) 1st team OL already looks light years ahead of last year at this point in the pre/season.
8) STOP GETTING GUYS HURT!!!!11 Damn

There’s probably more but that’s what I got for now. Oh, and Myron Rolle’s personal foul? Total bullshit.

I think we can find a way to keep him. He can be a serviceable WR/RB hybrid in the future. Herb Donaldson really impressed me, he looked hungry out there and he fought for every yard. Jake is a rookie, so I’m ok with him stinking up the joint. Finnegan had a great day today and Rob Bironas looked like his old self.

Love Eddie, he’s not the best color guy. And the play-by-play man is the absolute WORST. I can’t even keep track of how many observations he missed, players he messed up, and how they would go on tangents unrelated to what was happening on the field. Thankfully there is a color analyst god and he favors the Titans by giving us Mike Keith.

As far as the game itself…pretty much agree with everything here. Starters looked really good, and it looked to me like they were making a concentrated effort to run it and put Harper in a variety of situations to see how he responded. I’d give him a positive review given that. And if the line is going to block like that and allow backs like Harper to get 40+ yard runs…imagine what kind of yardage CJ will get when he finally arrives.

“Munchak said he expects Jason Jones to be OK for opener but he’ll need tests #titans”

…so that’s good

Doesn’t look like CJ is gonna be here any time soon.

From Chris Brown, Lendale White, Chris Brown, LeGarrette Blount (short stint), and the new torchbearer Jamie Harper.

Last week Locker looked good, and some of that is because the line gave him time to throw. This week, we saw the scrub o-line get absolutely dominated, and that really hurt Locker. With little time to throw, it was reminiscent of watching his tape at UW. Suddenly his accuracy was a little off and he was running and throwing balls away to prevent huge losses.

Positives:
1) The first team offensive line opened big holes for the RB’s.
2) Hasselbeck looked very sharp.
3) SCREENS! They screened well and defended screens well.
4) Jamie Harper ran with authority. I believe he’s going to beat out Ringer for the #2 spot, and may very well start week 1 if the CJ holdout never ends.
5) I liked how Finnegan was used on blitz packages. He got plenty of shots in on Bradford.
6) Locker hit Cook on a gorgeous pass and catch. Cook can play football.
7) Justin Gage had 0 catches. Problem is, no one else really stepped up to beat him out.
8) Bironas bounced back and looks to be back to his old self.
9) The run defense looked good. Jackson had little to no holes to run through most of the time.
10) Dave Ball had a nice pass deflection, and Jurrell Casey had a nice tackle to stifle a screen pass.

Negatives:
1) The first play gaffe, obviously. It was ironic too considering on local TV they just finished showing a clip from a Jerry Gray interview and he said they want to limit explosive plays.
2) Injuries. We were all scared when Hasselbeck and Ayers went down, and hopefully Jason Jones is fine.
3) Field goals are nice, but I would have liked to see them punch it in more than once.
4) Lavelle Hawkins didn’t do much to show he’s deserving of a higher spot than Gage, letting a catchable ball from Hasselbeck go incomplete.
5) It seemed to me the 4 man fronts didn’t get much pressure on Bradford until they blitz’d. They should be able to work on that when Marks gets back in.
6) Hasselbeck impressed me, but he didn’t really take many shots downfield or throw to the WR’s much. Perhaps this was him taking what the defense gave him or just the gameplan, who knows.
7) Good God, the 2nd string offensive line was bad. Locker was running for his life all night.
8) Yamon Figurs may have played himself off the roster with that dropped TD, and Kirkendoll didnt help himself with his drop.
9) Larry Fitzgerald just had to get payed during the game didn’t he? Still no progress on the CJ front, yet the team shows flashes of how good they can be but how much better they’d be with CJ … #dosomethingreinfeldt #loweryourdemandscj
10) Losing. But it’s preseason, so we trudge forward with our lives.