Bootcamp, for the most part, is over — the veterans are out of the hotel, teams are transitioning to more regular, season-like training schedules, and the inaugural is three weeks away. That’s why we’re going to start with a big decision that’s being finalized…
And it’s not like this decision was difficult for leopards–Baker Mayfield He built a great bullet relatively quickly, and I kept it the whole time. But I think, in a subtle way, it was important that he get the job the way he did in camp.
The truth is, there are plenty of actors out there to roam in the summer, and Mayfield was getting there when the team got together again in July. Sam Darnold He was with his teammates through the spring and made good progress on Ben McAdoo’s attack. So doing it this way allowed Mayfield to win the changing room, put some skins on the wall and earn his place among the captains.
It started, by the way, almost immediately, with Mayfield’s order to attack out of his first two weeks as Tiger (a calendar dead period all coaches could really do with him handing him a playbook) and into the early days of camp. He has shown his proficiency in football, as well as striving to catch up with his teammates mentally with a really big year for him.
The Panthers’ logic in getting Mayfield was to put their heads back above the water at the most important location in the field. But after a month of working with him, the Panthers are hoping Mayfield will give them a little more.
what do I like black Coach Dan Campbell did Detroit practice Monday, handing the keys to the players and letting them set the schedule and run the show for the day. My understanding is that most people in the building had no clue that he was planning to do this until early Monday – he formally presented the concept to the team at a morning meeting.
It’s their team,” Campbell said via text message. “I want them to have ownership in it.”
Furthermore, my sense is that the hope is to give them that ownership now will help accelerate the growth of a truly young group. Of course, the players love QB Jared Gofflb Alex Anzalons Tracy WalkerDT Michael BrookersDE Charles Harris And most of the veteran offensive line, among others, ended up taking the reins.
Campbell was accompanied on court by two strength coaches. The rest of his assistants stayed inside, as did most of the front office employees who were usually outside in practice. The reaction that came from the players was as expected.
I would probably buy a lot of all of this, but I think the lions are going to be very tough when the season starts. You can see the teamwork in the group on strong blows– Go and see how the hall exploded during that Aidan HutchinsonTeam performance in the junior show – and roster composition, with melee-style strength, sets the team up to be truly competitive and consistent from week to week.
Here’s the play everyone was talking about from Sunday night to Monday morning…
No one wants to see anyone take a hit like this Kaifon Tebodo I did there. but what Thaddeus Moss It wasn’t sloppy – cutting blocking has been part of football forever. And part of allowing that kind of block (we can argue about the rules, if you want) is that it’s part of a conscious decision the NFL made to prioritize taking headers out of the game over low kicks.
Now, there are players, Rob Gronkowski being one of them, who have said they’d rather hit high than low given what a person can do when kneeling. And I understand why guys in their twenties (Groenke was in his twenties when he said that) see it this way – a player can come back from a concussion in two weeks, while a serious knee injury can end a season or even a heart career upside down.
But that’s a topic on which I agree with the NFL. Decades of data tell us that head injuries will do more profound damage in the long run, and players who are still playing may not have the perspective to really appreciate that. So the approach was to take the headers out of the game and be wiser in legislating penalties for low kicks (some of which were banned) to leave some strike area for the brows and attackers to do their work.
I think if you look at it this way, it makes sense that a hit like Moss would be allowed. A lot of these happen in every match without incident. It just so happened that the mass that Thibodeaux took ended in an unfortunate way.
One relic from my trip I wanted to share—chargers Coach Brandon Staley and I discussed the challenge he faces in absorbing so many new players into key positions on the roster, given the complexity of the scheme on both sides of the ball (they run a Sean Payton version of saints Offense, then Vic Fangio’s defense).
He doesn’t seem to be overly concerned about it.
“Well, we have a lot of really good coaches and we have a lot of good players who have helped,” he said. I brought Zion [Johnson] and Jamaree [Salyer] And the fact that you have two Stud line coaches in [Brendan] Nugent and Shawn [Sarrett]then you have this great culture that you created, in a year’s time, our O line has acquired this really great culture led by Corey [Linsley]. And now, they’re bringing these two guys together really fast and that’s amazing.
Like we said last week, the Chargers’ goal since Staley’s appointment has been to get bigger across the lines of melee. So they got big guys. And obviously it was important to make sure that these guys knew what they were doing – and Staley already thinks they do.
Cody Ford Steps forward have been taken in Invoices Camp this summer, but in the end, for a player who slipped some away during his first three years, and moved from one start to the next last year, time is finally running out. Veteran Buffalo Buffalo Sign Roger Savold In a free agency to supervise the placement of one guard, then matching a four-year, $17 million offer sheet of Ryan Bates (Written by Chicago) on Offseason, which basically put the writing on the wall.
Ford hired first-team representatives early in camp as Savold was nursing a rib injury he sustained in a car accident, but when Savold returned a little more than a week ago, he and Bates settled down to take on most of the work with the first team, with Ford relegated to the second team. From there, the possibility was that Ford would be a backup this year
complex for several reasons. One was satisfied with the situation. Another was his limited flexibility in his position – he gained weight to play a guard role and wasn’t really an option anymore to interfere.
And so, with Ford in a contract year, there was more value in stocking next year’s war chest draft with another fifth-round pick, with Bills unlikely to get any comp picks in 2023, then there was keeping Ford. For the Cardinals, on the contrary, giving up the five made sense to have a younger piece on a line that lacks depth here and now, ages everywhere and can have holes to fill in a year or two.
Minnesota trade on Monday for Raiders quarterback Nick Mullinswho is likely to be circumcised, puts a lot Keelen Mund on the notice. Normally a quarterback doesn’t give up a height like Mond – he was the 66th pick in the 2021 draft – so quickly. But it is yet another example of how a regime change can shake up the career of a young midfielder.
If this quarterback is taken in the first round, it often means he will have a much shorter leash than he did with the coach and general manager who drafted him. If a quarterback goes out in the first round, it can sometimes cost that guy his job.
James Winston Getting back to doing 11 on 11 is important — it happened on Monday, which is a huge step because it means the doctors are comfortable having 300-pound defenders around his feet. And while it’s not ideal for Winston not to go through a full boot camp in these kinds of settings, this does give him three weeks to ramp up.
“It was good. Coach Dennis Allen told reporters. “It’s a bit rusty, but it’s good to get it back in there and back again. I think any time we bring a man back from injury, it’s good to get him back on the field.”
For what it’s worth, both undefined And the Chris Olaf She’s been super cute lately, so it definitely looks like Winston is going into dynamite mode.
Tom Brady is back in training. Big deal that he missed 10 days? Well… Guys in their late twenties are getting their veteran days, so you can imagine a 45-year-old guy can manage a little more. Also, if you look, 39-year-old Brett Favre signed with the Vikings three weeks and five days before their 2009 opener. He had new teammates to learn, a new offense to absorb (although he was familiar with OC Darrell Bevell), And rust out of season. In other words, he was facing more significant obstacles than Brady.
How did that end? The Vikings started 6-0, finished 12-4, they made it to the NFC main game and Favre competed for the best player.
Veteran Return Raiders released Kenyan Drake It is a sign of two things. First, they couldn’t find a receiver for his contract – they had been shopping for him the last couple of days trying to find a deal. And secondly, they really like what they saw of it Amir Abdullahwho more or less played the undoing role of Kevin Falk, Danny Woodhead, Shane Ferrin, Dion Lewis, and James White for Josh McDaniels in New England.
I was looking for it Josh Jacobs And the Zamir White In early downturns, Abdullah comes into long-running positions in Vegas.
Interesting to see Aaron Rodgers Building the Green Bay youth receivers again after slamming them a bit earlier in the camp. This is what he did after that Romeo Dobbs Some of them were doubly great, because Doubs – I heard it, at least – is the young receiver truly Earned the trust of the quarterback.
Rodgers is very sharp. I bet he knows he’s going to need Doubs, and a shaky night over the weekend gave him a good opportunity to build a fourth-round pick.
More NFL coverage:
[ad_2]