The Saints were back outside in the heat for more practices today. There were some interesting things that happened today, including the possibility of the Saints in a 3-4 defense. The offense had a field day against the defense, constantly getting the better of them, which upset Gregg Williams greatly.
Some big news that people may have missed is that Marvin Mitchell was signed by the Dolphins. It'll be interesting to see what the Saints do to replace him.
Of course the other big news was the release of Jon Stinchcomb. Stinchcomb was the starting right tackle for the Saints for the past few years, and it shakes up the offensive line rotation. We have tweets and transcripts including reactions about the release. Make the jump to see all of those.
Opening Statement "The following players still remain on the failed physical list: RB
Chris Ivory and DE Greg Romeus. The following players did not practice today: Ezra Butler, Ramon Humber, Clint Ingram, Joique Bell, Tom Johnson, Johnny Patrick, Jeff Charleston, Alex Barron, Leigh Torrence (hip), and Jo-Lonn Dunbar (quad). This afternoon we released Jon Stinchcomb. Obviuosly, something like that is a difficult decision for us as an organization. Here’s a guy that has been a part of our program since we’ve come here in 2006 and was here well before that. He epitomized the type of player that we’re looking for and certainly he’s a guy that we wish well and who we’ll miss. Zach Strief and Charles Brown will compete for that right tackle position throughout this camp and as we get closer to the start, we’ll announce the starter."
Can you follow up on the reason for that decision? "It was a decision we made to go with the younger players and those are always tough decisions. In Jon’s defense, he battled through an injury last season. He probably played his best football the year before that. It was a decision we spent a lot of time on."
Did you want to see how he came back from that injury in the first two weeks of training camp? "It was something we decided to do, and it wasn’t easy, but after a week here we felt like we needed to get Zach and Charles more work and get them in that position. Again, it’s always the hardest thing about what we do."
Is that why it was so important to get Zach Strief back? "No, because that would imply that was the direction we were going when we contacted him. We wanted Zach back because we felt like we had a good young tackle that we drafted. At that time, we wanted to get Zach signed and get Charles healthy but in this short time frame it’s something we decided to do with this organization."
We saw Jonathan Casillas spend a lot of time with the ones and Scott Shanle with the twos. Is that something to expect for the season? "We’re going to see those two compete at the Will and we’re going to see a lot of competition at the Sam. You’re going to see different guys with the ones and the twos in a number of spots and that would be one (position), but it won’t be the only position. You’re going to see competition at the Sam, you’re going to see competition at the corner position, and you’re going to see the same thing at right tackle and fullback. We have a fair amount of time to gauge as much information as we can on all these guys."
Can you talk about how Will Smith has looked? "I think he’s looked as good as I can recall. I think he played well the other night in the snaps he had. He’s in good shape and he looks to have his legs back underneath him. I’ve been pleased with where he’s at."
How difficult was it to let Jon Stinchcomb go? "(Jon) is one of the first players in Mickey Loomis’ first draft class back in 2003. We go back to 2006 in that first training camp, and he was one of the leaders. It was hard. I see that and yet I recognize it was still more difficult for the player. That’s the hard thing about it. He has a ton of respect in this locker room by his teammates and it was similar to sitting down with Deuce McAllister when that time came."
Was it an option to think about keeping Stinchcomb around? "We went through a lot of different options. The conclusion we came up with was that we wanted to devote a lot of time to both Zach and Charles."
Can you talk about Charles Brown in this training camp? "I think he did well in practice last week. He’s athletic and he’s smart. I’m anxious to watch him and Zach during this process. He’s someone who knows what he’s doing, and he staying healthy is important because he’s had the hamstring issue. We feel like he and Zach are going to fight it out and we’ll evaluate the practice tape and roll those guys through."
Will Jordan Black be Jermon Bushrod’s backup right now or will he move? "We’re flexible enough to take the one tackle that’s not taking reps with the ones and he can work with the second group at left tackle. Hopefully, both Zach and Charles can play left tackle and Jordan Black can play right tackle, and we can be flexible."
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They must be using some of that reverse LOTR technology to make Bradley appear taller, like maybe he was standing four feet in front of Juan. ;)
"Gowin on fourth and 14 will punt it away. He hangs it very high, angling it for the near sideline...HAKIM DROPS THE BALL!!! HAKIM DROPS THE BALL!! Brian Milne might've fallen on it at the ten yard line! It's the New Orleans Saints' football! Brian Milne, the most unlikely hero of them all, falls on the fumble, the muff by Hakim! There is a God after all!" -- Jim Henderson
"It ain't about how hard you hit, it is about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward, how much can you take and KEEP MOVING FORWARD. That's how winning is done!" - Rocky
I liked Marvin Mitchell, particularly for what he brought to special teams. Depth at MLB now concerns me. Not to a substantial degree, as there are a lot of decent MLBs currently available, but if Vilma were to go down in the opening series of a game, we’d be pretty much screwed against the run. Of course, I say that without ever having seen Wilson play the middle, so maybe they could piece together enough to save face, until they could sign someone else. I guess it’s no worse than having Mark Simoneau back there again.
"I was not on the boat in question" -Darren Sharper
Dunbar will be the back-up MLB— it was his position in college so you could say it’s his more natural position.
Stop wearing a wishbone where your backbone ought to be. Would you be convicted in court of being a Christian? Happiness is shared, and comes from sharing.
For anyone intrested, found this play by play grading and analysis of Strief, Brown, and Tennant. double Clicking on the attachment below the posts opens it up in another window where you can blow it up to 200% or 400% to get a clear read on the play description, analysis, and grade for each player.
Stop wearing a wishbone where your backbone ought to be. Would you be convicted in court of being a Christian? Happiness is shared, and comes from sharing.
It’s from a guy in Northern Ireland. A little further down, he offers this which I think many will agree with:
To be honest, the blocking schemes we use are not that similar to what I’m used to. There’s alot of deception in our schemes but not necessarily misdirection (so much). I’m more used to your standard run or play action or draw type of scheme and I think most people understand those pretty well. But what the Saints do is trickier. There was one play which encapsulates it for me – a fake quick toss, fake delayed handoff, pass. How do you block that? Your block has to make the DL first think it’s a pass, then run, then you show your true colours and pass block. If you pass block from the start, LB’s don’t bite on the run fake. If you run block, it’s hard to pass block which is the true aim of the play. There’s a really fine balance between being too aggresive and not aggresive enough.
As I mentioned before, we don’t do always do that much power running. Based on the plays we run, our run blocking has to start off resembling a pass in terms of how the Olineman attack. That can make our blockers seem unaggresive at times or, as one poster described it, ‘lazy’. But it’s just the scheme, rather than the players. To simplify, many of our runs use something very similar to the blocking you’d do on a draw, i.e. set up and then try to use positioning to get the D Line to go where you want them to. Basically the idea is to make passes look like runs and runs like passes, mix in screens, draws, and and when it suits us, power plays.
I don’t know how common it is across the NFL. But throw back, smash mouth football it ain’t.
Stop wearing a wishbone where your backbone ought to be. Would you be convicted in court of being a Christian? Happiness is shared, and comes from sharing.
Here’s his grades for the 1st team offensive line. This is where he explains how he comes to the grades as well. You’ll get the same chart with play descriptions, analysis, and grade as was used in above post.
I had a look at the starters’ performance and came out with the following grades:
Stop wearing a wishbone where your backbone ought to be. Would you be convicted in court of being a Christian? Happiness is shared, and comes from sharing.
Watching Stinchomb in the SF game really worries me. He was playing like he was when he was injured last year…just a bit slow, light-weight. It’s not good. He’s not been this poor for the last 5-6 years and I hope he works through it. But the grade is very bad. Maybe I was harsh in my grades but he really concerns me. And I think all the tackles we brought in (Foster, Black and the FSU guy – forgot his name) are as much for Stinchcomb as for Charles Brown. Odd as it is to say that. And you’re right about Strief, he’s got an opportunity here to really push Stinchcomb and may end up winning out if Stinch continues like this.
And yeah, Tennant could be starting and we’d not be any worse off and, potentially, better off by the end of the year if he continues to develop.
This was said 2 days before Stinch got cut. It bolsters the guy’s credibility in my book. I think he played/coached in NFL Europe, btw.
Stop wearing a wishbone where your backbone ought to be. Would you be convicted in court of being a Christian? Happiness is shared, and comes from sharing.
The Raiders actually signed that guy? I know he had been in Chicago for a coule of seasons. I always loved the assembly of video “highlights” from Bullocks’ career as a Saint found here
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