My impressions for tonights game

Well the football season is upon us, it’s been a long wait. I couldn’t watch everyone as I am only one person and watching the game from home gives me a limited view of the field so some parts of this report will be more in depth than others.

Let’s get it started shall we?

Quarterbacks:  Ahhh it seems like we've been waiting since the dawn of time for an answer to Marino, but it’s only been a long and agonizing 8 years. That’s not so bad when you think about it

John Beck:  The stat line never tells the whole story, 45 yards and going 5-9 for completions is nothing outstanding but he did a good job when it came to decision making (i.e. getting rid of the ball when there was a broken screen play). His passes weren’t bad, but he never went deep, except for one throw which was an overthrow. They ran a lot when he was in; it’s interesting that the play selection seemed so different when he was in. Then again, there is a damn good reason for that, which I'll get to in a bit.

You really can’t tell a lot from his performance other than what we already know, He's got a good release but on the downside he has a problem holding onto the ball, but he had the presence of mind to scoop it up. I still don’t think he'll be cut anytime soon, he did nothing that increasing the odds of that happening.

Chad Henne: He really looked impressive, the kid throws the ball with a ton of zip, and he doesn’t look a bit nervous, like Beck he made good decisions, but he went down field more often. He did lead us to two scoring drives, and he was very impressive overall. I think he's got a faster release then Beck; you can’t blink if you’re a WR when he throws. He's a big guy too, that’s definitely an advantage over Beck, since Henne didn’t get a ball swatted down like he did. Of course that blame partly lies on the guy who didn’t keep the defender’s hands down.

Josh McCown:  He had an average performance, sometimes he looked lost out there, He was the most pressured of the Qbs, but that’s to be expected when you are playing with 3rd stringers and PS guys.  He did make a couple of nice attempts to keep a play alive. I still think he's the odd man out; we have a much better vet in Pennington, but who really knows? Let’s see what “The Trifecta” will do.

As a side note Pennington was there on the sidelines giving the young guys advice, they should listen well, Chad is a smart guy. (He’s still #10 BTW)

Running Backs/Fullbacks

There's just one quick note about the fullbacks, Mauia cant seem to break a tackle but he can run through drywall, Grigsby looked faster than Mauia  though, I think he's got better hands, than the Juggernaut. I didn’t pay attention to their blocking skills, so there's not much to report on that.

Ronnie Brown: There's not much to say, he was only in for 4 or 5 plays and got 3 touches, on his one decent run he didn’t seem bothered by his knee.  He's a physical specimen though that’s for sure.

Ricky Williams: DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYUUUUUUUUMMMMMM! Not only is he in incredible shape but he is fast, REALLY fast.  And he won’t be taken down without a fight, Ricky is back ladies and gentle men, He made an incredible play out of nothing, he's as agile as a gazelle. Old age and ganja be damned, he's going on my Fantasy team.

Jalen Parmele: this kid is good, he's fast and strong I wish we could have seen more of him though.

Patrick Cobbs also had one very nice run that was negated by a penalty; we're set at RB guys, no need to worry

O-Line: Jake Long had a very good night from what I saw; he always kept his guy at bay and didn’t have a problem with pass protection. He's a beast, in fact when Beck was sacked and lost the ball he held his own against a would be blitzer. The guy that let the sacker sack the sackee, was Donald Thomas. Thomas played well as well, The starting OL played well as a whole except for that sack on Beck. Let’s hope that Jake Long doesn’t get hurt though, our OL depth is nothing special, and McKinney is a decent backup.  Long was only penalized once for a false start, at least he wasn’t holding, we all know he bragged about being able to "hide" his holds The line did a better job of pass blocking then they did of run blocking, at least initially.

As another side note: Sparano said he wanted to play the starting OL for the first half to get a better idea of what they got, it’s a good idea, but I don’t want to risk a starter getting banged up.

WRs/TEs: A very underwhelming performance by these guys, Fasno did play well though.  Hagan and Ginn didn’t get a lot of reps; Hagan did drop a couple of passes that’s not a good sign. Wilford was also unimpressive; he never made a play when he needed to. Kircus actually played well, Bess played decent, he showed good hands and ran his routes well, but he too dropped a few passes.

Defense: Yeremiah Bell made a nice play early on, nearly picking off Luke McCown.  Jason Allen also had  a diving pick along the sidelines. I didn’t see him get beat by anyone so it looks like he's improved. Will Allen however was beat a few times by Michael Clayton, but Clayton dropped the ball on one instance and he could have had a TD but the ball was overthrown.  Travis Daniels covered his guy well too, overall the secondary didn’t play bad, they never got beat by deep passes but there were several instances in which some receivers were wide open, they can’t let that happen. Both Langford and Merling got a lot of push on the opposing O-line, Ferguson is going to be a monster DT for us.  Roth didn’t do much tonight, he was lined up at OLB a few times though. Oh Rod Wright had a nice clutch sack as well. The Linebackers really did nothing special tonight. Overall I would say that the D played decent, we do have a lot of young guys with talent though, and it will be interesting to see who steps up.

Finally, I'll comment on our Special Teams:

Dan Carpenter's big leg isnt so big, I would say he's only a little better than Feeley on kickoffs.

No Ginn sighting on the return teams.

Some guys are gonna get chewed out Monday if they haven’t already; we almost let two returns get taken to the house.

Brandon Fields had a couple of nice punts.

That’s all folks, have a good night, feel free to leave me any questions and I'll get to them tomorrow morning.