h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

How's your team doing in preseason?
How did their opponents do?
Who's racking up the stats?

The Raiders took the Rams 7-6 in a defensive battle. Probably what u expect at this stage of preseason. Defense to dominate.

For the Raiders:
- the passing was pretty poor.
-- Rich Gannon 0 of 1 on two series, plus sacked twice.
-- Marques Tuiasosopo 6 of 10.
-- Tee Martin 1 of 6.
-- Rick Mirer 1 of 2.
- 5 sacks conceded.
- rushing was good.
-- Madre Hill - 6-63 including 50-yarder.
-- Justin Fargas 17-72 but fumbled on the Rams 1-yard line
- Defense forced 2 fumbles and 2 interceptions.
- Special teams returns were good, incl. 46yd KR and 20yd PR.
- Janikowski missed 48 and 52 yd FGs.
- Barrett Robbins did not play.

For the Rams:
- their passing game looked reasonable.
-- Kurt Warner 3 of 4, but the 4th was an interception.
-- Marc Bulger 11 of 16.
-- K. Farmer 8 of 13.
- Lamar Gordon rushed 12 for 55.
- Jeff Wilkins missed
- Marshall Faulk did not play.

Obviously still only preseason and can't read too much into things with most of the game being played by backups.

A comment about the Dolphins-Bucs game from some NFL article:

"Sadly, Taylor looked like the only Dolphin ready for the season. The defense, which was on the field a lot more than planned, looked flat-out slow. Pittman beat Junior Seau by two lengths on that 28-yarder, and the defensive line didn't seem up to snuff (outside of Taylor). Offensively, QB Brian Griese looked a little uncomfortable but did not throw any near-interceptions. Ricky Williams, meanwhile, got only two carries for 4 yards -- definitely not enough evidence to see where he's at, but we assume he's still the top fantasy running back. "

In fact the 1st-team defense gave up 145 yards in the 1st quarter ...

Wannstedt said he looked at the film and that Seau made a mental mistake on that pass play. There was some fierce criticism of Seau saying he's too slow to play, and no doubt Wannstedt's comment was in response to that.

I wouldn't put any stake in the first game of preseason. Remember, the Redskins went 4-1 and set a new record for scoring in last year's preseason... and then couldn't move the ball all year.

You're probably right. The media have got to find some kind of story to shift their papers and rake in audience figures

Some of you may possibly have noted a singular lack of comment from the local village idi.. sorry, make that , after their first preseason runout.

I wonder why?


"We're going to go back and try to practice a little bit tougher," head coach Steve Spurrier said after the game. "Our starters didn't play a whole bunch, but it was still disappointing."

it's funny, i still know people who think winning in the preseason is important, or even good.

watching the games I look for really specific things (like Seau's speed in the flat, wich he rarely did from the middle, and never in the nickle).

For the Bears, I was wondering about Grossman's arm sttrength, and the aility of the tackles to go one on one.

Gtossman looked good, a few good decisions a few bad ones, but that's irrelevant when he's only running 10 plays or so. His strength looked great, as did his pocket mobility.

The tackles looked like garbage vs the first team.

the Bears could have the worst O-ine in the NFL because of their awful tackles. Which is a shame because the center and guards are ok and sometimes even good.

Friar

Everything went pretty according to oplan for the Chickens in the first pre-season game. Most important early indications are that Hasselback looked sharp and the young secondary looked good.

No word on the run defence, though,as Ladamian Thompson wasn't played.

I don't have alot to say about the Cowboys outing against Arizona last week.
None of the QBs moved the ball, the running game didn't work, the O-line didn't play extraordinarily well, the D-line failed to put much pressure on the QB against a depleted Arizona O-line, and the only player that seemed to play well was Roy Williams, who had 4 tackles, 1 sack and a recovered fumble.

We'll see if they can do better against the Texans this Friday night.

Raiders lose to the 49ers 14-10.

The offense line seems to be allowing sacks and pressures like a leaky thing. Making it very difficult for the QBs.

Gannon 3 of 11 !
Janikowski finally made a field goal on his 5th attempt of the preseason.

RB Justin Fargas had 126 yds on 18 carries. Only played 2nd half so probably against the 2nd-string defense. But nonetheless a good prospect.

Raider defense did a good job of stopping the '9er offense.

And for Sharkey's laughter benefit, Rick Mirer was 9 of 16, drove all the way down to the 49er 2-yd line with 20 seconds remaining and then fumbled the 4th down snap

Oh yeah, splitting my sides after *five* turnovers gave the colts a 21 nothing lead. Mostly through the fact that are newly rebuilt O-Line couldn't stop the blitz at all, apparently - Hasselback was taken off in the first quarter rather than risk him getting an injury is how bad it was...

Alexander looked in good nick, though, and the defence did a good job holding the Colts to 21 points considering the ineptness of the offence.

Though inevitably, we picked up injuries as well, with Ryan Hannan (ankle ACL) and Isaiah Kacyvenski (ankle sprain) joining Chad Eaton (knee) on the injury list. Hannan is the real p*ss*r, I think there were high hopes for him this year.

Could be worst mind, we could be the Falcons...

Cowboys looked to have regathered some composure this friday night against the Texans, beating them 34-6.
Quincy Carter played the first half, while Chad Hutchison didn't play at all. Tony Romo and Clint Stoerner shared the second half.
The Cowboys moved the ball pretty well, running it for 140+ yards and racking up about 390 yards of offence altogether. Main highlights were a 30-yard pass from Carter to Antonio Bryant for a TD in the second qtr after Michael Hawkes had caused a fumble on the kick-off after their first TD. Also, a 70 yard Tony Romo TD to Randall Williams in teh third qtr and to end it all, an 83 yard punt return by Zuriel Smith in the fourth qtr.

However, the coaching staff wasn't too ipressed with the Cowboys during the Sunday practice where nothing seemed to go right.
The whole coaching staff walked out on the team for the last 20-odd minutes of practice.

I read that Parcells wasn't too happy with certain aspects of play. He brought up the negatives in the press conference e.g. player being offside 3 plays in a row.

I'd say that's pretty good coaching with a team at the Cowboys level. Players need to realise that mistakes will not be tolerated and that discipline is required to become a good ball team ...

However walking out in the middle of practice doesn't seem sensible. The only benefit I can see is if you want to see who stands up and leads the team when the coaches aren't around. Otherwise it's a poor tactic. Gives players the impression that when things aren't going right, quitting is an option.

True, it may not seem like a good idea, but the fact was that they'd been playing really poorly all through that practice sesion, and Parcells had beent rying to get them to start focusing. He'd yelled at them, made them run laps, restarted a drill after about half a dozen plays because they weren't good enough.

Richie Anderson (A Parcells-guy) took charge on the field and they finished the plays scheduled in the script, then they ran the conditioning sprints after that was done, under the leadership of Daren Woodson and La'Roi Glover.
So hopefully, they'll be better tomorrow.

I think walking out on the team can be a very effective attention-grabber for the players. At the very least, it's unconventional. Can you think of another coaching staff that has done it?

In Dolphin's news, the first-team offense was sharp against the Jags, with Fiedler playing well in particular. And the first-team defense held the Jags' first-team offense to one first-down in three series.

But hey, it was the Jags.

Well, I can think of one other coaching staff that has walked out on a team mid-training.... Bill Parcells when being head coach for the Jets.

Another coaching staff ... Pam, my old volleyball team's coach. She stormed off in a strop one day 20 minutes from the end of the session. We still didn't get any better.

IMHO though Parcells action seems a bit childish. At least he didn't take the pigskin with him ...

In his press conference on monday afternoon he said that it was a matter of accountability. He stated that the coaching staff isn't out on the field playing the game for the players, so if they get in a rut i a game, there's only so much the coaching staff can do to try and improve the play. Ultimately, it's up to the players to grab themselves by the collar and pull themselves out of it.

Hmmm ... nice thought but cr*p IMHO.

1) why not do it everytime practice goes wrong?
2) why not walk off the sidelines during a game if thing's are bad?
3) why not sub some players in, like you would during a game?

As I said before, and in some respects this is what Parcells is talking about when he says accountability, the only reason I can see for doing it is to see who steps up and takes the lead.

But even so, I think it sends a message that quitting is ok. You've tried everything you can, it hasn't worked, so put blame/responsibility on other people and walk away.

Perhaps that is why he's a respected NFL coach ... and I'm just dithering along.

Another preseason game down, another great performance by the first-team defense, as well as the passing game. And Charlie Rogers and Sam Simmons added outstanding punt returns (30-yd and 51-yd, respectively). We've lacked a return game even longer than we used to lack a running game.