Thoughts on pre-season

I totally got side-tracked and missed the game last night. :oops:

What'd you guys think? Nichols looks like he did OK. Looks like we had all the back-up receives in. What'd you guys think of them? Did Schiavone seriously miss two field goals? Ugh. He's kicking like Duval when the pressure's on.

Next week we have Calgary. Boo!

Nichols looked poised, did well with his reads and I’m encouraged with the running game which IMOP will be used a lot this year. The designed play sets by the Esk’s new OC on passing routes were O.K. as the QB’s got the ball (as the game progressed) in there when a first down was needed. Can’t really blame Schiavone on his missed field goals; with that swirling wind it would be tough/rough for any kicker. Is this the Duval of old? :thup: Punting into that wind, he did excellent and I’m glad for him on that account. Schiavone held his own as well with a chance to win it (from the 55yd. line) with the wind, but missed as the ball drifted to the left. However, being a high snap from the LS may have played a role with his rhythm thrown off some what. On high kickoffs into the wind payed off as the Esk’s got good field position a couple of times; mind you, the live ball has to go further than ten yards. Next up is Calgary; Ricky Ray gets his chance and thus we’ll see how Joseph/Nichols do going up against the Stampeder defense. It’s still preseason yet, but the 3-4 defence will get stronger as the games go by.

I didn't get to watch the whole game, but I will say I was really impressed with that LB, Munoz. . . you may have a budding star there.

Whassup all! Thought it appropriate to check in while I'm listening to Stan Rogers :smiley:

Sounds like a decent game. Some positive stuff. Nice to have P who can do decent with a strong wind!

I missed most of the 3rd quarter where i would have liked to watch Mueller play, but from what i saw I liked what Mueller could do, along with Munoz, he had some great quickness in filling and some good hits, some of the receivers were dropping some easy passes, McCarty looked great as well, hopefully the jitters are out for the game against Calgary
All in all, and good showing for the 1st game of the year :thup:

I thought the team looked good for what is basically a new group . Reed I thought made a rookie mistake by going for it with 4min left on the clock then not going for it with 2min left on the clock down by the GL .
I will say that KJ looked terrible .

I just finished the first half. Eh. There were some positives. I liked Munoz, like you guys, and James seemed good. Joseph was terrible, as was that Henry guy. What'd he have, like 2-3 drops? I didn't like the coverage on the return for a TD. 52 missed a tackle, and Duval overran him, which I guess isn't so much his fault since he's not a defender. Still, he should've stopped earlier. He gave Hughes a clear shot to the endzone. I noticed we mixed between a 3-man front and what looked like a loaded front (about 5 guys) on defence. I also noticed we used a lot of 5 receiver sets.

Unrelated note: Why is Koch's name pronounced Coke? I've always said it with the ch sound.

I hope Joseph gets more playing time next week, just so when he sucks again we can cut him without to many arguments.

Hope to see a good game tommorow against Calgary and we'll see a lot of the 3-4 defence as well. Also I feel Nichols has the inside track to get a spot on the roster/practice sqaud, but still depends I guess on how much they play Ray/Joseph; so thus to get more of a look on Ward/Nichols. All in all, most likely the Esks will keep both of them kicking around as one perhaps will be placed on the injured list.

Well, I watched most of last night's final pre-season match.

Not impressed.

About the only thing I could identify as a positive, is that I do like the play of Munoz and Rod Davis as MLBs in a 3/4.

But beyond that. . .

It was one ugly performance by the Eskimos. They looked totally confused, as if both the offence and the defence had spent no time at all in training camp studying the playbooks. Just struck me that it looked like hardly anyone knew what they were supposed to be doing play by play. Confusion as to coverages in the secondary particularly.

At one point Mrs MadJack questioned if Kavis Reed was going to be the first coach fired before the regular season even started (but she would have been wrong, as that particular "honour" belongs to one John Huard. . . prior to his short tenure as coach of the Argos, he was the inaugural head coach of the Shreveport Pirates, but the Glieberguys fired him during training camp).

We just plain sucked until the Stamps kicked things back.

I don't like the 3-4 at all if we don't have a solid secondary or linebacking corp.

There is no pressure on the run or any pass rush with our front three, and in that regard the whole poo defence resembles some awful adaptation of a "prevent" defence.

:thdn: :thdn: :thdn:

I'm from the school that believes anyway that a prevent defence is an awful concept, even when you have some successful pass rush as you should establish anyway, because it prevents you from winning a game even when you are ahead.

There better be some serious additional butt-kicking in practise this week especially on defence.

The offence will be fine.

I'm with you, MadJack. Not a lot of positives in this game. I liked that Edmonton came back to finish the first half, but it looked to me like Calgary was playing loose on that last drive. Looking at the stats, it doesn't look like we had much of a running game. And I still can't believe we gave up 21 points in the first quarter. You're right: It was as if no one knew what he was supposed to be doing. Rich Stubler is a great DC. Hopefully he can whip these guys into shape. Otherwise it won't matter how many points the offence puts up.

Didn’t Roger’s get hurt last night.