Pre Season Week 1 Done

[Suicane]

Done and Done!

[Kozure]

We lost and at times it did not look pretty, but there are a few good things to take from the game.

1. Defense looked solid against Tulsa's first team. Still need to tweak a couple things that I think will help against the run, but overall, very good outing. I think if anything, the offense kept f'n up so much that it put the defense in some bad spots, but they were still able to hold Tulsa back enough to make it a game.

2. Michael Cibella's play was pretty good. I'm looking for him to have a huge year now that he's out of the shadow of MLB Nitschke. Still, his pass defense needs to get a little better.

3. SS Ingle looked good, or at least, he didn't have a pass completed against him. I liked his pre-season debut.

4. LT Grant had a monster run blocking performance. One thing we haven't had in WVA is a great run blocker at T. Maybe he will finally be that guy.

5. Third down offense and defense. I tweaked my offense last year to come up with a way to become more efficient at third downs, and it worked. We were the worst in the league on third down during the first three games of the year, and after the tweak, we became the best. It was a major reason we won the championship. Good to see the good play continue, even though the offense didn't do crap in the other parts of its game.
But on defense, I made a couple tweak to try to become better. Not sure if it was just a fluky good game at third downs for them, or if I'm onto something. Regardless, they were good in short and long third downs conversions which was good to see.

Things to be disappointed about:

1. Pass protection. It was dreadful. Not sure what the problem was there. Fluke, bad chemistry on my side or great play on Tulsa's side. Maybe a bit of everything. Needs to get better. I'm thinking that the play of G Les Wren was to blame. He young and may be bringing the rest of the line down. Granted, it isn't the best pass blockers at guard, but six sacks against us is pretty harsh. I like playing my quarterbacks in the preseason, but I don't like seeing them getting their asses handed to them. Pass protection was probably the biggest problem I saw in this game. They were nicely spread out over the game, so they weren't confined just to 2 or 3 drives. And when we were sacked, it was a drive killing play. Hopefully, this is something I can correct or, if Tulsa's pass rush is that good, I hope to not seem them again.

2. Chad Harding looked horrible. I kept the guy because I wasn't sure if Markel is going to become injury prone or not. He is the backup, but he played well below what I've become used to seeing in him. He couldn't do crap. Markel, admittedly, only looked a little better, but Harding has had a knack at looking better as games go on, not worse. This may just be a bad game for him and the offense, we will see in a couple weeks.

3. The pass rush. I hate our pass rush. It sucks. I love to see what this defense could do if it could just get to the QB more regularly. This is the only league I've been in where I can't get my D-Line to be good sackers. Frustrating, but what can I do. Still, I can't complain too much. The defense as a whole played pretty impressively.

Good game Tulsa.

[Chris Rex]

For some reason, I didnt think we had to have ANY inactives in preseason. So much for checking out the young guys ;-)

[tarcone]

Morton impresses. I drafted that guy in the 7th a while back. He has developed nicely.
I think Wilkins will start at G.
Defense looks to be much better this season.