Camp Notes
The “Over-30 Club” crowd was out of action and thus missed the full-hitting practice. It was a day for the offense to practice its spread attack, while the defense primarily stayed in a base alignment.
Here are other key observations and notes from Thursday’s morning session:
· Formations and Fronts: Play-fakes were in full effect, as the offense tried to bait the defense out of position. In most instances, the defenders were not fooled and did a nice job of sticking with their assignments.
One of the best plays that the offense ran involved a toss to tailback Ray Rice off the left side. Before Rice received the ball, a receiver motioned into the backfield and served as a decoy on a play-fake from quarterback Joe Flacco.
One thing is clear, when tight end L.J. Smith is on the field, he will not be a head-up blocker. Instead, the former Eagle will block at an angle. Smith was the motion man on a number of pass plays, and he did a nice job of chipping before releasing into a pass route.
· Who Stood Out?
– Ray Rice: Rice has been a huge part of the passing game throughout training camp, and today was no exception. The former Rutgers Scarlet Knight motioned from the backfield and flexed out a few times, as the formation morphed from a one-back alignment to an empty set. Rice is a natural route-runner. He showed off his cutting ability against linebacker Jason Phillips. Rice was able to blow by the rookie on a slant route over the middle, but the pass went elsewhere.
– Kelly Talavou: The second-year player is a huge nose guard who finally got more playing time with Justin Bannan and Kelly Gregg out of the lineup. Talavou has a similar build to Maake Kemoeatu, who also played for Utah and the Baltimore Ravens. At one point, Talavou was on the field with Haloti Ngata, creating an unmovable wall in the middle.
– Haloti Ngata: One of the highlights of the day came when the hulking tackle got his big paw up and perfectly timed his jump to bat the ball down. Ngata has gotten his hands up often during the preseason, showing better awareness than at any point in his career.
· Scouting the Rookies
o Jason Phillips: Phillips received most of the snaps at Ray Lewis’ spot on the inside. The rookie from TCU is a smaller linebacker with short arms. At this point, he is more of a two-down player but during the morning session, he showed that he could cover in the short area. However, he lacks the athleticism to stay with receivers in space, at the secondary level. Phillips displayed good awareness of where he needed to slide in zone coverage. When the backer struggled, it was because he hesitated to break on the ball because he was peeking too hard at the quarterback. That said, overall, he did a nice job of staying true and did not overreact to the play-fake.
· The UDFA Corner
o The pint-sized Jayson Foster RB/WR showed off his versatility throughout the morning session, as he was heavily used as a runner and a receiver. As he received a hand-off after motioning from the slot, Foster displayed power by pushing forward for a touchdown score off tackle in the red zone. On another play, he ran a go-route and located the football, but he was unable to finish the play by securing the ball.
Other Rookie Notes
– K.J. Gerard was active as a blitzer in the team’s red zone package.
– Paul Kruger continues to get tested in coverage situations, and he had a hard time defending the elusive Rice in open space. Rice caught a pass and then quickly used a juke move to shake Kruger out of his shoes.
– After being a non-factor in the passing game for some time, fullback Jason Cook caught a couple of swing passes.
Photo by Sabina Moran
