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Eagles Andy Reid Mcnabb NFL Draft Defense Macklin Westbrook Superbowl
Published: July 31, 2009
I’ve said it before, but let me say it again; You will remember the name LeSean McCoy.
The Harrisburg, PA native was electric in individual drills, as well as team drills. He showed that he has very soft hands and very good vision when running between the tackles, especially for a rookie.
On several occasions McCoy would start heading inside, and just that quickly would change direction and bounce to the outside, leaving even the starting defense left doing the Lord’s Prayer.
The kid idolized Barry Sanders growing up, which isn’t surprising because he moves just like him. At one point, he even pulled a signature Barry Sanders move. Making a cut his feet came out from underneath him, but he just put a hand down, gathered his feet, and kept moving.
Another guy looking like he belongs with this team today is Brandon Gibson. He’s a big guy who could make a really good possession receiver in this league. He turned some heads in this morning’s practice with his surprising soft hands and deceptive speed.
Some heads that were turning include the great Ray Didinger and Merril Reese, who were checking him out next to me from the sidelines.
He played in the west coast offense at Washington State, but was forced to switch to the spread during his senior year and played on a poor team (2-10). As Reese commented on Gibson, “He probably was pressing a bit in Mobile (Alabama, site of the Senior Bowl), and it caused a bad week and a bad game, making his stock drop.”
Gibson could be a diamond in the rough of this draft class.
Some other young guys who looked good were Danny Amendola, Eldra Buckley, Kyle Eckel, Cornelius Ingram, and Dimitri Patterson, a rookie free agent.
Patterson, a corner, played very physically with the receivers and was not afraid to bump and shove them a bit. In a one-on-one against Hank Baskett, he would have been called for pass interference, but it was great to see him getting physical with him anyway.
Later on a slant, run and caught by Brandon Gibson, Patterson finished the play by giving him a nice shoulder check and getting Gibson’s jersey a little dirty.
There’s the good, here’s the bad…
Donovan McNabb had a pretty good morning practice, but his backup, Kevin Kolb, was inaccurate, inconsistent, and indecisive.
He skipped at least one pass over the middle to an open Danny Amendola, and completely missed a throw so badly that I’m not sure for whom it was intended. However, to be fair, it wasn’t all bad. In the one-on-one drills he had some very nicely placed balls.
The problem seemed to come in the 11-on-11 full-speed drills. Even in the “thud drills” he seemed to do okay, but when it was 11-on-11 and full-speed he looked lost, and indecisive.
In one play during the thud portion, he did a very nice job of shuffling to his left to escape the pocket, then finding Lorenzo Booker sitting in between the linebackers for a good gain.
However in almost the same play in the full-speed drills, he shuffled out to his right, and instead of seeing the open running back in the middle, he instead tried to strong-arm the ball to a covered receiver, where Dimitri Patterson knocked the ball down, nearly intercepting it.
On the other side of the ball, Stewart Bradley wasn’t real great in coverage.
On a few occasions he allowed Brent Celek to run away from him, while at other times allowing receivers to cut underneath him on the drag pattern for a big game.
He seemed to pick it up and fill well in the running game during the full-contact drills, but again the pass coverage was lacking. Pass coverage is a known weak area for Bradley. The Eagles will need to work with him and make sure that gets straightened out if they want to win on defense this year.
A guy that most will probably say had a bad morning was Lorenzo Booker, but I disagree. He had a couple drops, but they were just mental errors. Both times it looked like he was trying to run before he had the ball. That may come from the talk that he must impress to make the team, so he’s rushing.
If he just slows down and plays, I honestly think he’ll be just fine. He ran fairly well in both the thud and full-contact sessions. When the inside wasn’t there, he did a good job of bouncing to the outside and making something happen. He looked fast, and he played fast.
He might have been a bit too quick to bounce to the outside, but he made it work most of the time, so it’s a bit hard to complain about it.
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