Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Training camp observations...


I attended this morning's practice with my son, and we had a ball. He got autographs from Jeff Backus, Kevin Smith, Gosder Cherilus, John Kitna, Charlie Sanders, and Alex Lewis. Lewis gave him his glove, which got him really excited.I was taken aback by the pace of practice. I've attended training camps for over 20 years now, and this is by far the most physical, fast paced camp I've witnessed. Two players that had injuries were Langston Moore (shoulder, looks serious) and Manny Ramirez, who limped off the field and had his knee wrapped.I knew I liked him, seeing him on youtube clips only, but watching Kevin Smith was particularly impressive. He's much more athletic than I thought he'd be, and he's a serious hard nosed football player who goes all out in blocking drills and other individual drills. He also flashed during team drills.Other draft choices like Dizon (nice snazzy INT in team drills, which was the play of the day this morning) and Cliff Avril (who looked pretty strong coming off the corner) looked good.Orlovsky was on target more than Stanton, but I was impressed with Stanton, nonetheless. Actually, Orlovsky was better than Kitna this morning. Kitna held onto the ball a little too long, and took some blown whistles (dead plays). Roy Williams and Calvin Johnson were their usual selves, showing off their many talents. Roy is really good with kids, taking a kid from our area to be the waterboy. My son and I had a blast.