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Crossbones

Crossbones

The Savior is on his way!
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OK so we've been through about 13-14 days of training camp. All we've heard are reports and coach Killin's comments. Still y'all must have formed some opinions on what we have so far.

To me it sounds as if we might be in the midst of building the Baltimore Ravens v1.2 who punked us in the AFC Championship gamed a few years ago. All defense and little offense. The question for me is can we get just enough offense like Baltimore did to make this thing interesting this year. It can be done. Remember Baltimore did it with a quarterback who was told "don't lose games for us" and that is exactly what happened. Can our offensive line keep the QB upright and open any sort of holes to allow for a clock eating running game.? Do we have the horses at RB? Or are we drafting top 5 again?

Let's hear it.
 
CrossBones said:
OK so we've been through about 13-14 days of training camp. All we've heard are reports and coach Killin's comments. Still y'all must have formed some opinions on what we have so far.

To me it sounds as if we might be in the midst of building the Baltimore Ravens v1.2 who punked us in the AFC Championship gamed a few years ago. All defense and little offense. The question for me is can we get just enough offense like Baltimore did to make this thing interesting this year. It can be done. Remember Baltimore did it with a quarterback who was told "don't lose games for us" and that is exactly what happened. Can our offensive line keep the QB upright and open any sort of holes to allow for a clock eating running game.? Do we have the horses at RB? Or are we drafting top 5 again?

Let's hear it.
Click to expand...


I think we still have pass protection issues. Big issues. That said I think our running game will be markedly improved. Changing schemes alone would have changed that but adding Rhodes, Griffith, Miller, and Bush will be a huge boost. Passing will be better then last year by going to quicker passing but it still won't be good to great. We play in too tough of a division to expect playoffs. But I do think marked improvement will be seen.
 
Yeah I need to feel the warm and fuzzies about the o-line as well, I like the depth we have almost at every spot except there.....

We now have 2 experienced QB
We now have 2 Season RB
WR is deeper then it has been since the SB days.
the Offense isn't as bad as last year but the Line still scares me...
 
Pass protection will still be an issue. Having WR's that actually run their routes will make a huge difference.

The depth at RB is better, but actually having FB's to use in the passing game is better. Even if we only throw to them once or twice a game, forcing the defense to cover them will open up other guys. And if we can actually replace Jordan at RB we'll have a guy who can catch passes there too.

I'm not sold on McCown, but from camp reports he doesn't turn the ball over that much, so he could definitely be Dilfer-like. Culpepper might be the better option when he gets up to speed. Walter needs to cut down his turnovers (last season is over kid).

TE is markedly improved. Adkisson needs to get healthy to deliver on his own confidence, and we'd have a very athletic group. Stewart is a veteran who could have a mandated roster spot edging Adkisson out since Madsen and Miller seem to be the top 2.

On defense we've only improved. I think our run stopping will be better. Our pass rush, better. Our pass defense, better. We've got more quality depth to deal with injuries this season. I don't see how this defense could have a significantly worse year than last year. Statistically, yes. Effectively? Not very damned likely.

I'll really have to see the play-calling mix on offense to determine how far we'll be able to go this season, but the playoffs are not out of the question with how far both Denver and Kansas City have fallen. San Diego now has a coach who's mandate is "just don't f#@k it up." And we know that he certainly can.

Kiffin has dropped in at an opportune time to demonstrate his ability. He's already done a very good job putting his stamp on the roster. Gone are most of the malcontents and lolly-gaggers (except Porter, who is singing a new tune). In come a group of hungry players looking to make a mark in the league. If we can answer the questions on offense with a "pretty good" we'll have a good season. I don't see why we can't answer those questions with at least "pretty good".

Bring on the season.
 
I think our defense will be good... but not great enough to suddenly start drawing comparisons to the Ravens D or Bucs D back in the day. The achilles of this defense in my opinion will be against the run. Be real interesting to see how well these guys can stop the run in the preseason.

Offensively, I still think we are a running back away from fielding an NFL caliber offense. Without a running threat, I still see defenses pinning their ears back and blitzing the hell out of our inexperienced OLine all day long. It will also force us to put the ball up 40 times a game... not something I have a lot of confidence in with a new system.

You just hope for Kiffin's sake that this team can pull a few upsets early on. Starting the season 0-4 will end the honeymoon real fast.
 
I'm not sure I'm quite ready to put our defense in the Balt Raven class yet. That unit was virtually impossible to run against. If Terd can step up big this year and play the Siragusa roll, we'll hopefully put the opposition into a lot of 3rd and longs where our team speed should take over. We're also going to have to see a lot more turnovers converted into scoring opportunities. The Bucs had a similar type run in their SB year, where Derrick Brooks and the defense basically carried them the first half of the season. I think Brooks had more defensive td's than their entire offense going into the 4th or 5th game. Their offensive line only started gelling in the second half of the season particularly near playoff time and the rest, as we painfully found out, was history:shakehead:

Like everyone here, I'm not getting a good feeling about the OL just yet. I think we'll do better in run blocking but I think we'll struggle early in pass protect. All the good defensive oriented teams have one common denominator, and that is a good ground game. That's going to be the key obviously. If there's one postive we can take from this pre-season thus far, it's the uptempo style that Kiffin brings. That antiquated offense last season was just brutal to watch. Keeping us out of 3rd and longs will go a lot way in getting this offense, particularly the OL on the right track.
 
This year we don't have Art Shell to mishandle the Jerry Porter situation with the result of bringing down team morale...I believe it did.

Nor do we have a disorganized group of coaches on the offensive line. We have Tom Cable who has had success everywhere he has gone. We have heard Gallery knocking players on their backside, Newberry looking really good and agressive, and Mario Henderson progressing on the fast track to go along with a veteran presence of Carlisle. The RT spot doesn't look good so far but we seem to be moving forward in other places and there is still time to make some changes.

Working against one of the best defenses in the NFL is also a great benefit.

As far as TEs go, I am not writing anyone off just yet. Madsen seems to be doing well. Adkisson had a great training camp last year and appears to now found confidence.... and he is talking about it which is new to him and is a good sign. We, of course, also have Stewart.

We also have Kiffin and Knapp who will be more creative in the playcalling....and anything is better than what we had last season with Walsh.

We now have two very good FBs to aid our running game. We have versatile RBs and another one that shows promise.

All in all, I still feel optimistic.
 
I'm in agreement on the pass protection isue. I'm hopeful that we'll show marked improvement over last season, but I think we still have a looong ways to go on the o-line.
 
this team's gonna go 1-15. No cohesiveness at any core positions and way too many holes to fill. Lane Kiffin will resign by the 8th game citing medical reasons, after which Greg Knapp sticks around and rob ryan becomes interim Head Coach. We go 1-7 under him, but show promise in some of the games. Jamarcus Russell decides to holdout until next year's draft and Michael Bush retires to pursue a career in hair salons.
 
Our defense should be solid. Stopping the run as everyone else has mentioned is priority number one. I would think we could improve in this area with Terds getting his reps to start and with the addition of D. Darius, I think helps big time. I would also not be surprised to see Tyler Brayton excel at one of the tackle spots rotating in and out. The guy played inside in college, has a good motor and is strong as hell. I think he's too small to be a full time guy, but think he's a run stopper, not a sack artist. You can also bet now that T. Howard is in his 2nd year, you will see Rob Ryan bring the house a lot more than usual. His defense has too much speed and he will be using those big nickel packages to his advantage.

On offense...I'm not sold on McCown from a "mental" perspective. But what I do see is a QB who has wheels. If he can keep the mental perspective of the game in tact, not force the ball, use his legs and hit his backs and TE's when in trouble....this will help the O-line out BIG TIME and we can at least move the chains and rest or defense. The trouble I had last year outside of the scheme with the Oline and I mentioned it every week was the "bad communication" between the linemen. Over and over again, you saw blown assignments which left our lineman on either one on one as well against a unprotected gap being blitzed. Hopefully this years scheme and cohesiveness comes about. The quick strikes, the split backs and motion schemes that Kiff ran at USC should help as well. You throw in the athleticism of our line and the Cable implementation should help out quite a bit to help support the run game. Or RB's are going to HAVE to know their blocking assignments (Lamont) or the mental breakdowns can begin for McCown. Someone on the Oline needs to step-up and hopefully Newberry stays healthy because he then will give our line that mental edge.

Rup, brought up a good point in the fact that we have three wide-outs who run very good routes. I would say that is Williams strong suit as the kid ran excellent crisp routes at SC, Curry runs great routes and Porter does very well. The other major plus I see with these three guys is, they have very good hands. They lack explosiveness or that sudden burst or wiggle, but all three can jump, make the acrobatic catch and should move the chains. Porter at times has lost his "focus" and has dropped the easy pass, but then he's also made some great snags as well. Curry is Mr. Consistent and is our poor mans version of Hines Ward. He catches the tough ball, blocks well and can move in the open field.

I think one area that we need to improve on MAJORLY is special teams. We leave too much yardage out on the field, too many points and don't set our offense up for much success. Our Punt and Kick returns are mediocre to dreadful, we have shown NO THREAT and Seabass has been too inconsistent. Hopefully with the addition of Brian Schneider, he takes us to that next level. Again, someone needs to step up on ST and become and impact player. Chris Carr, doesn't cut it in my eyes nor does Doug Gabriel on Kick Returns. Johnny Lee Higgins and maybe Carlos Francis can step up?

With all this in mind, if we catch a few breaks by staying healthy, SD losing a few guys and us winning a few that we shouldn't, we could possibly land a Wild Card spot. But with all the if's, I think we're looking at 7-9 to 8-8 which would be a huge turnaround. My main goal is to see this team be competitive and consistent and not get blown out in games, week after week. We get that this year, and 2008 will be looking sweet.
 
Jack's sore libido said:
Beating Detroit and Cleveland would not be upsets.
Click to expand...

This pains me to say, but yes it would. Both teams had better records and Cleveland beat us the last 3 meetings. The Lions are 1.5 - 2 point favorites for the opener. Hell the Vegas line has 2.5 point underdogs to the Cardinals on Saturday nd we beat them last year.

The team with the worst record is an underdog to every game until they prove otherwise by winning games.
 
Actually, the Raiders are a 1 1/2 point favorite against the Cardinals and a 2 1/2 point favorite against the Lions ...

http://www.vegas.com/gaming/

... which is why I said beating Detroit would not be an upset. The Raiders are the betting favorite.
 
I don't think Kiff has the take it down to the last two possessions Herm Edwards type of mindset so I'd be surprised if we tried to play the grind it out Ravens kind of game... After fighting losing battles with Carroll's conservative nature, I'm sure he's anxious to open things up... How soon that happens is the question... It's not helping having to play musical QB's though, the sooner we settle on a starting QB, the sooner we can truly start building an offensive identity... The offensive line needs to get the feel of what the starting QB does back there and the receivers need to build timing out of their breaks... I think it's important that we settle on a guy heading into the third preseason and give him all the snaps with the 1's he can get...I'm hoping one of McCown, Pepper or Walter really steps up and makes it an easy decision for Kiff...

Everything we've seen, heard rather, of this coaching staff has been to the good so far but that's going to have to translate to the field before I can call them anymore successful than what we've had lately... Right now I'm willing to settle for baby steps starting with the tempo of the playcalling... It was downright painful watching the process of getting the play from Walsh to the actual snap of the ball... Not having to fight against the playclock will really help out our QB and O-linemen... I'm pretty sure the Kiff/Knapp thought process is more in tune with the actual game speed, so hopefully this isn't going to be the negative factor it was last year...


Like everyone else, I'm concerned with the O-line but I'll wait to see them in action before hitting the panic button...Again improved playcalling could really help them out by dictating to the defense better and making the D play more honest.... We did way too good of a job of making defenses and certain individual players look better than they really were last year...

As far as the defense goes, I'm a little concerned about all the press they've gotten... All offseason it's been "the offense sucked, but the defense was playoff level"... I'm hoping they realize that there was certainly a lot of room for improvement and that they need to step up their game as well before we can talk about the playoffs...

It's hard to get a true pulse without actually seeing the team on the field, but I'm more optimistic than I have been in a long while... Though admittingly, the JaMarcus holdout has soured me a bit because I'm one that happens to feel that missing 20+ practices and the team bonding period at Napa IS a big deal whether there is intent of playing him soon or not...
 
Raidermania12 said:
this team's gonna go 1-15. No cohesiveness at any core positions and way too many holes to fill. Lane Kiffin will resign by the 8th game citing medical reasons, after which Greg Knapp sticks around and rob ryan becomes interim Head Coach. We go 1-7 under him, but show promise in some of the games. Jamarcus Russell decides to holdout until next year's draft and Michael Bush retires to pursue a career in hair salons.
Click to expand...

Well, Hellooo, Eeyore!!:shakehead:
 
I will echo everyone's feelings on the O-line. I am still very worried about them.

They should have less trouble this year due to what should a better offensive scheme and playcalling, but they are still a big question mark.


I am optimistic overall but if they look bad in the first 2 preseason games I will be very very worried.


I'm In!
 
RNorris said:
I will echo everyone's feelings on the O-line. I am still very worried about them.

They should have less trouble this year due to what should a better offensive scheme and playcalling, but they are still a big question mark.


I am optimistic overall but if they look bad in the first 2 preseason games I will be very very worried.


I'm In!
Click to expand...

Don't worry.:nono: No more 7 step drops. No more Aaron Brooks. We wont see Walter running backwards during plays and frantically try to set up and find a target only to be smashed by defenders who most likely felt insulted that any QB/Offense would take that much time to throw. Mayor McCheese is also back to cooking up breakfast and arranging town meeting's to discuss the upcoming peach festival.
 
We live or die by the OL, no doubt.

I'm hoping (praying) that we luck out and get our Marcus McNeil/Shane Olivea in Mario Henderson, and he takes over the RT spot right away.

A ton of 'ifs' on the OL...

If Gallery converts smoothly to G;
If Newberry's legs hold up;
If Sims doesnt get punked like a bitch against speed guys;
If Carlisle can stay healthy and mesh with a new team;
If Cornell Green can go to hell and make way for someone else;
 
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