Training Camp Thread
 

Figured I would start a thread for discussion about news and reports from Day 1.

I listened to the Owen Daniels inteview on 610 after the first practice. I didnt take notes, I really should have and will try to do better next week.

OD did say that when he lines up against MW if Mario gets his hands on him its all over because they are so long.

Duane Bown did practice witht he 1's, he looked pretty good according to Brook Bently. edited

AJ caught a long TD pass, and he is looking good evidently.

Couple of things I caught from listening to various reports.

1) There seems to a sense of urgency. Expectations are up, players are playing fast, everyone is accountable. "It feels different around here."

2) Nobody got hurt (knocking on wood). First day last year Chris T blows up a knee. Or as Emmitt would say "blowed up his knee."

3) Initial reports were that practice would run to about 10:30 but the horn sounded at 10:10 or so. That could be a sign things were crisp and Kubes was happy with the work they got in. (speculation on my part)

I heard they called it early too. There was a some talk f how Kubiak was going to ease into things....no or light hitting for a couple of days, afternoon practice would be more of a walkthrough/teaching session than a workout. Basically try to keep everyone healthy. With OTA's and they way most guys stay in shape there really is no need for the grueling training camps of the past. The rookies need the work and time to learn, but for the most part there is no reason to kill the guys in camp with killer workouts.

Some good pics here:

http://www.chron.com/sports/photogal...AMP_DAY_1.html

http://www.houstontexans.com/news/St...?story_id=4420

Quotes from the morning practice from the mainsite.

Biggest suprise that shouldnt have been a suprise. Chris Taylor is looking great and will start taking reps at FB.


Dejavo from last TC? And not to long ago Kubes was saying that he wasnt going to play him there at all.

I think with the emergence of Walter, Davis, and hopefully Jones that Kubiak is going to want to use those weapons more....meaning I expect a lot of 3 WR 1 RB sets. I really think in order to carry that 4th running back (I think it will be Taylor if healthy) that we only carry one "real" FB with Taylor and maybe somebody like Dreesen as emergency back-ups.

For those that haven't figured this out yet, if you only read one link/article/item each day from camp (aside from ItB.com, of course :D), make it the quote sheet on the official site.

Some other tidbits:

gotta run, but here is a little write-up:
http://www.inthebullseye.com/archive/2008/20080726.html

Had to leave around 30-45 mins early, so for anyone else who went, please let us know your impressions.

Nice takes on Gibbs. He is a bad ass equal opportunity ass chewer for certain. Cook is going to have his hands full making this team, especially of all the RB's stay healthy and CT taking snaps at FB. Nice to see Chester being coached up. Man, I think Gibbs is really going to have an profound effect on this group.

Yeah Abate is already gone. I think taylor will be the B/U FB this year.

Sorry about this, but did not have time this morning to post much here and I only answered some questioned on TT.com. Here is some observations of the OL drills from there.
DL drills, Okam was surprising, he was able to get into the blocker and then quickly get separation and move to make a play. If he was to loose 10 to 15 lbs, wow. As it is he is a wow.

Okoye is quick, and after practice he was working with Jethro on beating a double team. I really like Jethro.

Zgonina is practicing like his football life is on the line, and it is. He looked very solid.

Mario............................................. ...........................................and ditto.

Sorry I missed a lot of the 7 on 9 drills and such, watched the big uglies.

BTW we are going to cut some very solid players, and that is a first.

I can already tell that my pretraining camp roster prediction will have some big changes.

I will try to get a better look at the glamour guys.

I have to say something about Walker. He is not the biggest or the fastest player, the kid just seems to always find the hole and make positive runs.

He is going to be hard to cut.

Sounds a bit like DD how was.

If they cut him, somebody is going to pick up a nifty little running back. I think one of the "old guys" may get injured (and soon) which would make it moot.

There's something to say for his youth and, so far, his ability to stay healthy..... He and Slaton are just a couple of months apart in age; Darius being two months older...

Day 2 pics here:

http://www.chron.com/sports/photogal...AMP_DAY_2.html

He looked even better today, day 3.

A few notes from day 3.

Chris Brown had better pick it up or he will be pushed down the depth chart. He fumbled and had a poor day. Gibbs was in his ear on multiple occasions. Walker is making the case for him to get a roster spot, Brown isn't.

Butler stood out today, but not for good reasons, again he got a lot of attention from Gibbs, and not the good kind. False start and a few missed assignments. (Never caught Frye today).

The times I focused on Adibi in passing drills, he looked very solid.

Greenwood made a huge play against Chris Brown and got the ooohhh from the fans.

Earl Cochran had a huge play from the LDE position against the run, every defensive player got a charge from that. Jethro was pounding heads in approval from that one.

Moffit was always around the ball, and on one pass play he had Chris Taylor on a deep route and appeared to have him stride for stride, nice job.

BTW I miss my replay button when I'm at practice.

Shane Boyd is better than all the backups QBs from last season not named Sage.

Jacoby Jones had a very nice PR. Without the replay not sure he wasn't down at the start of the play, but he made some nice moves getting by the 2nd wave.

Near the end of practice it appeared that Kubiak was really tearing into the team. Today's practice seemed to be slower, and less intense as a whole. And I believe Kubiak was venting his displeasure.

I think I said it yesterday, but it bears repeating, we are going to be cutting some real football players this season, guys like Zgonina and Walker know they are on the bubble and they are playing like it.

Lastly Brown is showing a fire to succeed. He was banged up a few times and went to the side and stretched, but he always can back in when the 1st team did it's next set of reps. Once this kid gets his legs under him, he will be OK. (Do not take that to mean he is the opening day starter).

Hope to see some of you out at Tuesday mornings practice.

Paine, I really appreciate the recaps. Keep 'em coming.

Here are my thoughts from Day 3 practice.

QB-

Schuab looked good. He had one real bad pass to AJ in double coverage that was just up for grabs. Another, either he overthrew a timing pass to AJ that would have been a TD or AJ was off. The rest were mstly short throws with zip and accuracy.

Sage looked solid.

I have to disagree with pk about Boyd, he didnt seem to make read progressions, was staring down his recievers, and made some piss poor throws because of it.

I didnt catch Brinks.

WR-

AJ didnt get huge seperation today, but he was still AJ and made some good cathces and there were a few times he got his seperation after Schuab had made his read there.

Walter looked great. He caught a ton of passes, although he did drop one very short. He made a great diving catch to.

Davis was getting decent seperation and showed his ability to run good routes catching some shorter passes.

David Anderson dropped a few passes, had at least one good catch but looked shakey.

I didnt catch JJ or Williams so Im not sure there.

JJ seemed to be limping around alot during ST practice. His return looked pretty decent, but there was a flag on the play that most likely would have brought it back.

RB

Green looked good. If healthy he is the best RB on the roster. He had some good runs and some bad ones.. But I think more of it was the OL or DL than him.

Brown looked bad. He had one decent play to the edge, but other than that he came up short.

Slaton looked good at times and worse at others, there were a few plays he had Kubiak on him for dancing a bit in the backfield. Little rookie things but all together very primising.

Taylor looked ok. Nothing great or bad about him.

Walker....... Wow. He looked better than any of the other RB's out there. It didnt matter if he was taking reps with the 1's, 2's, or 3's. He was just getting it done, and looked faster than any of the other RB's. I think he knows that he is a long shot and his bringing it.

OL

Our running game looked pretty sad today, most of the decent runs were outside or cut backs from the running back to go the opposite direction. I have to say that this is probabaly due to no cut blocking in practice and learning the new system.

Brown looked good and like someone else said his explosion to the second level is fast. There was one really great run play where he hit his man, drove him, released and made it to the LB by the time the RB was hitting the hole he made.

Gibbs was on fire, but I didnt hear the wonderful specifics that Kieth heard the other day. Maybe it was the music they pumped in?

I agree with pk.. Butler was struggling and wasnt doing very well.

Winston held up very well againt MW when they lined up in thier pass rush package.

DL

Just some general observations. They seemed to play the run good on the inside, but not so good on the outside.

The pass rush package was Mario, Weaver, Amobi, Colvin.. Left to rigt. They did pretty good, there were definatly a few plays that would have been sacks. There was one where Mario and Colvin colapsed the outsides at about the same time, it was pretty.

I have to say that I didnt see Mario comming off the ball any faster than last year. He still seemed like the last man moving, altough I was only really able to catch him when he was lined up a LDE. He still played great, I just didnt see the explosion off the ball I though I would.

Okam is huge.

TJ seems to have gotten over his slow meandering everywhere, and seemed pretty peppy the whole practice.

LB

I didnt really catch much of them, but it did seem like thier coverage over the middle was pretty solid, and thier presence at the line and outside was good.

Johhny Holland is intense. He is always coaching and the players seemed to respond to him very well. Most of the mistakes the LB's made they knew it right away to. The LB's dont take a single minute off, whether its indivdual drills or anything else. They were all full speed and intense.

DB

I was slightly worried about this, and after today I am still worried.

Bennet was awesome, he stuck AJ at the line and kept with him all the way down the field. He deflected anther short pass, and looked good every play I watched him.

I only watched Reeves on one play I think. He pressed AJ at the line pretty good and stayed on him ok. He didnt get burnt, but I think that had the play lasted a bit longer he may have gotten beat.

Fletcher was meh. He seemed to get beat often, and his only good play was a press on AJ at the line and keeping with him, although had the safety not been there on the play AJ would probably have caught it and taken it home.

I didnt catch much of Molden, he did seem to be very active though.

Demps played ok from what I saw.

#29, he wasnt even on the list and i didnt catch his name, had a good break up and almost int, but it was against 2-3 string guys.

All in all there were no big passes, and coverage seemed pretty good, especially with the starters. DRob and Faggins were there cheering on the other DB's and helping them the whole time. DRob did warmups and stuff with the team, he was full speed and never limped.

I agree with pk that the practice seemed some what slugginsh and today was much cooler than yesterday it seemed. I dont think Kubiak was very happy either as he seemed more and more agitaed as the practice progressed.

There is so much going on during ever second of practice, no one person can see it all. Thanks for adding to our observations.

Day 3 pics:

http://www.chron.com/sports/photogal...AMP_DAY_3.html

Day 3...pic #5

OL getting nasty. Nice to see that for a change.

i don't know why but everytime i've seen myers he just looks less strong than an o'line guy usually looks but everytime i've read anything (or seen pictures...1 for 1 haha) he's mentioned as strong and solid. i hope he is, strength or solid play aren't really things flanagan or mckinney brought out of the center position. is weary hurting still? everyone always said he was our best guard but briesel has been eating up his opportunity.

keep the camp reports coming fellas, some of us were too dumb to go get tickets......

Day 4 quote... and RB Chris Brown missed practice this morning.
http://www.houstontexans.com/news/St...?story_id=4433

I only pulled out a couple quotes. Take the think to read the whole thing.

I forgot to say this, but when we were going through the gates the guy taking the tickets said we could come back to every practice even if we didnt have a ticket and they would still let us in.

I may or may not take them up on it and try. Its up to you if you want to take the shot. But dont get mad at me if they dont. Im just relaying what the dude said, nothing official.

does anyone else think Chris Brown doesn't make it through camp?

Wow.

I was under the assumption that it was Weary's position to lose given that he was the starter last year and, by all accounts, looks very good physically. But, I guess not.

That was my thought when I saw the quotes....I've thought it likely that if either Green or Brown misses significant time in camp that one of them gets cut. If both of them have issues then I would guess that they decide who is the lower injury risk....even though that might be like being the smartest kid on the short bus. Kubiak wants to have one veteran.

I think Brown better show Kubiak that he's at least willing to try and fight through injuries. If he's hurting himself even more Kubiak will sit him, but for a new player trying to make an impression on his new coach you don't want to have the appearance of someone who isn't tough enough.

That is one thing I'll give to Green he at lest tried to keep playing last year.

That was one of the things the Tacks were saying, that Chris Brown acted like he was made of fine china, and as such was constantly holding himself out of contact. The thing is, if he really wants to, he can be a real force in the run game. Just look at what he did at Jax the first game of the year last year. Something like 167 yds rushing, or something like that. Well let's just hope between the two of them Green & Brown can give us a consistant running game. If not, we better hope Slaton & Taylor & Walker can pickup the slack. Not a real cozy scenario.

Hey, don't make fun of the smartest kid on the short bus. That was ME!

Kubiak never calls out players for a poor performance. He just calls them out for not being on the field.

That's why I'm always a bit sceptical of his comments. Not that that's a bad thing. Yesterday he was praising Roberson. Does anyone think Roberson will make an active squad, barring injuries? I think a lot of what Kubiak says is just psychology. I hope what he says about Studdard is true, though. I hope he gets in the mix. When he got drafted, a lot of people pretty much discounted him. To tell the truth, I was one of them.

Day 4 pics:

http://www.chron.com/sports/photogal...AMP_DAY_4.html

Brown should watch Walker play. The kid is going hard every play and I would rather have a "slow" Walker who tries hard a hurt all the time Brown.

I am starting to think Walker maybe bursting the Bubble and Brown is crawling on top of a bubble.

On paper, a guy who weighs 205 and runs a 4.55 forty probably shouldn't be in the NFL, and maybe Walker soon won't be. But I DO think he has what it takes to stick with a team and maybe it will be the Texans. The thing I like about him the most is he seems to have great vision, great decision making. I think he is definately better than Gado, Lundy or Echimandu.

Just out of curiosity, do you know how much Terrell Davis weighed and what he ran the 40 in?

One of the reasons a lot of people felt that Spencer was released was because he wasn't a fit in Gibb's ZB system, notwithstanding a possible recovery from his injuries. Therefor why shouldn't Studdard be released for the same reason because he's clearly not a fit either in Gibb's same ZB schemes ?

I'm wondering if Walker might have upped that 40 time some since entering the NFL. Someone that was at a practice mentioned that he looked as fast as any of the other RBs out there. I just hope he isn't the odd man out in a numbers game and then goes on to be a good-great RB somewhere else.

you know the general knock on walker is he is slow and undersized. he never has looked slow to me, quite honestly he's always looked pretty worthwhile and undersized guys are everywhere in the nfl so it doesn't really matter.

I believe he was in the 4.7 range. 40's are so overated.

I do agree that Kubiak uses the media as psychological tool. He will call guys out for poor performance though. He's called Taylor out for fumbling and not blocking well enough. He's called Pitts out for not using his potential. He's called TJ out for being lazy. He doesn't do it all the time, and I think he's careful about who he does it too....some guys will respond, others won't.

I think you missed my point. I was just saying that not many of the guys with those stats make it in the NFL. The ones who do have to have something special going for them. Obviously, Davis was one of those guys who did. So did Emmitt Smith. Interestingly, both those guys were drafted much lower than they should have been. Teams were scared off by their low top end speed.

I think in general, top end speed is somewhat overrated in the NFL. Guys like Reggie Bush, who probably has as much top end speed as any back in the NFL, has struggled mightily the last two years. Top end speed really only becomes a factor when you make it to the open field, and even for the best runners, that doesn't happen very often. Especially if you are a dancing wuss like Reggie. If I remember correctly, Ron Dayne had a longer run last year then Bush.

Walker is very fluid, with great vision and no hesitation in his game. He seems to have the ability to instantly cut back without losing any speed, and he seems to have a good idea of when to do it. I think that's what will help him stick in the league, and that's why I really enjoy watching him run.

I noticed that Kubiak said that this year he has put behind him the problems that Kubiak mentioned last year. Kubiak never got too specific about them, but I wonder whether part of it was that Walker didn't really want to hit the weight room seriously.

I haven't seen him yet this year. Does anyone know whether he has put on a little but more muscle?