I went into this practice wanting to focus on the defense, and it was a great day for that, as the D had a better overall performance than the offense. The latter was rather sloppy with a good number of dropped passes. The drops were seemingly contagious and they even spread to Mark Andrews and Rashod Bateman.
Kyle Hamilton and Geno Stone had some impressive plays. Hamilton was very active and had a nice pass break up playing in the front seven. You saw Hamilton all over the place. Stone had one of the highlights of the day when he tipped a pass coming on a blitz up the middle.
One of the standouts of practice was LB Vince Biegel, who was one of the most active defensive players. He showed that he’s a linebacker with some versatility. Malik Harrison looked good once again. He was strong in pass coverage and was particularly impressive when they were up against it in the red zone. Harrison is seemingly playing with a lot of confidence.
The secondary was strong to start the second week of camp, with the defensive backs contesting a good number of passes. Kevon Seymour had a leaping tip of a pass down the field, though it was an uneven practice for him, as he did get victimized by Rashod Bateman. I’ve already mentioned the performances by Hamilton and Stone. The safety play was perhaps the highlight of the day.
There was a little bit more work on the run game today. Things got clogged up in the middle of the field. The interior defensive linemen and linebackers looked strong. Just about every linebacker walked away with some positives to feel good about. I thought Patrick Queen and Kristian Welch showed a very good ability to diagnose the attack from the offense. Diego Fagot looked a little stiff, but he is still fairly imposing. One defensive tackle that stood out for great effort and push was Isaiah Mack, who had a subtly great practice, which is kind of how it’s done in the trenches.
There were some good moments for the offense. Shemar Bridges and Jalen Bolden both had some nice catches. Jaylon Moore actually made a bit of an impression with back-to-back catches at one point. Pat Ricard caught one pass where the defense must have been glad it wasn’t a full on game situation, as he looked like a ripped bowling ball coming down the lane hard.
James Proche had one of the strongest performances at the wide receiver position. His best play was a tough grab against a very hard working David Vereen. Lamar Jackson took off and ran a couple times which is always something to see, even if makes for a relatively pointless practice rep.
One good thing to note for the offense is that Ben Cleveland is finally on the field, so that means he must have passed his conditioning test after missing the first four practices. Another noteworthy item — there was no Devin Duvernay today, something that became obvious when special teams worked on fielding punts.
The defense won the day. The practice seemed to go fast and a lot of that had to do with the amount of work the offense and the defense had as competing units. I don’t care how big of a football nerd you are, that’s always going to beat drills and walk-throughs. While it’s good to see the defense standing up a bit, you would like to see a more put together look for the offense. The weather was about as good as it has been so far during camp too, so that wasn’t a factor.
Dropped passes and a lot of things that could be cleaned up stood out today.
