First Full Pad Practice - Winners and Losers

John Fox....

The Rick Renteria, Doug Collins, Denis Savard of Baseball.

 

John Fox....

The Rick Renteria, Doug Collins, Denis Savard of Baseball.

 

Wow, wouldn't that be great.

Im going to be beating the Harbaugh drum all season. That mother f*cker is the only one close to being crazy enough to overcome the McKaskeys.

 

Really good write up on today's practice. I highlighted the things that stood out to me as "things to watch".

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Another hot and humid day set the tone at Bears’ training camp today. While the practices tend to follow a familiar pattern, today’s practice seemed to focus more on actual football and football situations.

Once the team got back together following positional drills, the bulk of the remainder of practice was 7-on-7, 11-on-11 or 2-minute drills. On Sunday, the defense dominated in all aspects but on this sunny day in Bourbonnais, the offense struck back.

My initial thoughts are that the offense seemed to really pick up the pace today, which was a nice surprise. They seemed to have an extra bounce in their step and were breaking the huddle with a purpose. With that, let’s get down to my observations for the third day in pads.

Offense

• Like I mentioned above, the pace of the offense was impressive. This is the first time that they looked truly comfortable since I have been at camp. The team broke the huddle with a purpose and went to work
• Mike Glennon looked sharp today. He is really taking charge of the team and was clearly in command of his charges.
• Kevin White was a beast today. He caught passes early and often, which continued throughout practice today. White was fast, quick and physical. This was the Kevin White I saw at West Virginia and not the player I saw earlier in camp. He made a few catches over the deep middle, a leaping catch down the right sideline and a few WR screens that I saw.
• Cameron Meredith has turned himself into a true pro. He runs near-perfect routes and catches everything. He is so dangerous on post and comeback routes. I would be shocked if we didn’t see Meredith break out even further this year.
• Tarik Cohen again had a nice day. I will caveat this by saying that he is not being hit. But he took a screen pass to the house without anyone getting close enough to catch him. I will be curious to see how he is deployed during the regular season.
• Mitch Trubisky was running with the second team today, the entire day. If this continues, it is a significant development in my opinion. With some better weapons to throw to, he continued to impress me with his accuracy and timing. He also did not have any snap issues today. I repeat, no botched snaps today!
• The tight ends as a whole were solid but unspectacular. This seemed to be the day for the wide receivers to shine. That said, Ben Braunecker and Daniel Brown turned in a few very nice catches in team drills. I did not see Zach Miller today.
• The offensive line did a great job in pass protection today. Glennon had a clean pocket virtually the entire day, with a few nice rushes from Leonard Floyd mixed in that Glennon deftly moved to avoid. The running game stalled again today. Keep in mind that Kyle Longis still not participating in these drills. The second string had Trubisky moving his feet a bit more and the third string would have murdered Mark Sanchez on a number of occasions.

Defense

• The defensive line was stout against the run but failed to get much of a push today on passing plays. Also, the defensive and offensive lines were on the opposite field and in an awkward place to see the one-on-one drills, so there isn’t much to report there.
• Leonard Floyd continues to have a nice camp and his newfound strength appears to keep offensive lineman off balance. If this continues into the season, he seems poised for a big season.
• Vic Fangio spent the whole positional portion of practice with the outside linebackers. This is the first time I have had the defense on the field I was at, so this was a nice thing to see. According to Willie Young, Fangio has been a great help to him and the other outside linebackers. This position, more than any other, seems to be the tightest-knit. Lamarr Houston and Willie Young are constantly working with Floyd on the sidelines about technique.
• The inside linebacker group didn’t stick out much. The coverage seemed to be good on the tight ends in team drills, but the tight ends still seemed to get the best of them. Although I do believe that this is an outstanding tight end group.
• Not much about the secondary stood out to me at all. The one guy who flashed again was Eddie Jackson. The way that the offense threw the ball today, I am looking for a redemption day from this group tomorrow.
• I found it interesting, but not surprising, that Andy Phillips was practicing his punting skills as well as his field goals prior to practice. He wasn’t great but he wasn’t bad either. That is a really good skill for a kicker to have, and vice versa for a punter. I am not sure of Connor Barth can punt but if not, I have to think that this give Phillips a leg up.

That’s all I have for today. To recap, the passing game looked good, the run defense was stout and most of the players that you expect to play well did. So not much surprised me based on what I had seen to this point.

Also, if you are planning to head to camp tomorrow (Thursday 8/3), they are calling for thunderstorms all day, so keep that in mind. I will be following the weather closely and if it doesn’t look like they will get practice in, I will likely not be attending.

Until next time, happy camping and Bear down!

Follow me on Twitter - @BearsLink82


https://www.windycitygridiron.com/2...-back-mike-glennon-mitch-trubisky-kevin-white

 

Sounds encouraging Mongo, nice report.

 

I thought you wrote that Tuna, well that's disappointing.

Yeah, that's a lot of sunshine, I will have to see a lot more of it before I actually believe it. Who wrote this? Could Bearslink be Ryan Pace?

 

Yeah aggie it don't take much to encourage me the bar is set so low the fact that White is still suiting up is encouraging and that would of sufficed.

 

I am not believing anything I hear from camp, want to see it on the field. This whole coaching staff (outside of Fangio) and front office have an integrity issue with stuff they spew to the media. I am seriously jaded towards any reports on this team based on the last 4 years so I will wait until game 1 and make my own decisions.

Anything I read outside of what any of you guys in here have seen, I'm viewing as propaganda from the McKaskeys.

 

Where's "Your Boy Roy" when you need him? I used to love his camp reports.
I'm with you aggie while the reports coming out of camp are encouraging my expectations haven't wavered.

 

Thank for the reports. Good to be able to read thoughts from actual fans instead of some of the media heads that try to put the pom poms in their hand and cheer damn near everything with rose colored glasses. Had been wondering how Kevin White was progressing since I was disappointed in what I saw when he was on the field (the limited time that is) last year. Hopefully he is read to take that step forward and can avoid the injury bug.

 

Does anyone know Trevathan's status? Is he healthy and expected to be 100% coming into the season? Part of the reason I was so frustrated last year was because he was the pickup I was most looking forward to seeing, and he and McPhee both dropped off the injury cliff.

 

From everything I've heard Travathan is on schedual to be full go once the season starts. They will be cautious with his work load leading up to the season I think we will know more once preseason games start.

Unfortunately the same cannot be said for Kush who will be lost for the season after tearing his hamstring.