CatMan's 8/1 camp observations...

[CatMan72]

Sounds like Goodson might have a high anle sprain like the god Dez Bryant. Hopefully thats all it is.

Lets hope so, Goodson was looking good - it would be a real shame to lose him for any extended period of time.

[CatMan72]

I really wish they would give Barnidge more of a chance to catch some balls with the 1st team. One of our problems is receiver but yet we keep one of our best pass catchers on the bench all the time. He needs to be lined up in the slot more often.

Agree, especially in the red zone.

[carpanfan96]

Thanks for the update for today.

[Miaoww]

Sounds like Goodson might have a high anle sprain like the god Dez Bryant. Hopefully thats all it is.

High ankle sprains are a nightmare to recover from.

Really interested to hear about Clausen and Connor.

Whenever I watched Connor play in college he looked like a football player (as they say). I think he'll do well in a starting role for us next season.

As for Clausen - well I'm of the opinion he was the best QB in this year's draft (and that was before we drafted him). I figure he's getting used to his new surroundings and teammates at the moment. We won't see the best of him for a while yet. One question though, does his arm look as good as advertised?

[woody]

I really think Armanti will start getting the hang of catching punts. I feel like a lot of people are reading too much into him muffing punts now. He's never done this in his life..

CatMan is he looking good with his routes and getting off the line/jam?

[woody]

Yeah your right, sprains can sometimes be worse than breaks.

[SorthNarolina]

Clausen checks down a lot period. He's not doing it because of Fox.

[CatMan72]

High ankle sprains are a nightmare to recover from.

Really interested to hear about Clausen and Connor.

Whenever I watched Connor play in college he looked like a football player (as they say). I think he'll do well in a starting role for us next season.

As for Clausen - well I'm of the opinion he was the best QB in this year's draft (and that was before we drafted him). I figure he's getting used to his new surroundings and teammates at the moment. We won't see the best of him for a while yet. One question though, does his arm look as good as advertised?

His arm looks good to me. I've been making a point of comparing the velocity and accuracy of the QB's and Clausen is right up there with Moore in both categories (except for some of Clausen's accuracy issues on short crossing routes that have already been mentioned). There is a noticable step down in both velocity and accuracy with Pike, spiral is not as tight and it doesn't get where it's going as fast. Cantwell clearly has the strongest arm, but seems to hang onto the ball a little too long and struggles with accuracy.

[CatMan72]

I really think Armanti will start getting the hang of catching punts. I feel like a lot of people are reading too much into him muffing punts now. He's never done this in his life..

CatMan is he looking good with his routes and getting off the line/jam?

His route running has looked good to me and I haven't seem having any problems getting off jams, but I don't think they've been jamming that hard at this point in camp.

[coxc63]

I really wish they would give Barnidge more of a chance to catch some balls with the 1st team. One of our problems is receiver but yet we keep one of our best pass catchers on the bench all the time. He needs to be lined up in the slot more often.

Yea I agree, I feel he is the biggest threat overall that we have at the TE position and he seems to have the drive to get those extra 3-4 yrds. King is reliable, but there's not much after the catch production from him.

Hopefully the FO is going to pass a little more this year to open up room to run for double trouble. Id hate to take snaps from dwill and jstew, but it gets frustrating to see run plays on 3rd and 6. If this team can convert more third downs and keep drives going than in previous yrs then maybe this team will be good enough to make a run for the SB. We are too conservative at times, I can understand if we have a reasonable lead but when we are up by a FG the passing game seems to not exist.

Oh and catman thanks for the update on Connor glad to hear he's playing good. After watching TC do you feel it was the right move sliding Beason to WLB and let Connor man the middle, or would you of prefered the filled the WLB spot with another player?

[woody]

His route running has looked good to me and I haven't seem having any problems getting off jams, but I don't think they've been jamming that hard at this point in camp.

Yeah thats true but I would imagine that getting off the jam would be one of the toughest transitions to reciever. I really appreciate all the work you've done for us lazy people

[Miaoww]

His arm looks good to me. I've been making a point of comparing the velocity and accuracy of the QB's and Clausen is right up there with Moore in both categories (except for some of Clausen's accuracy issues on short crossing routes that have already been mentioned). There is a noticable step down in both velocity and accuracy with Pike, spiral is not as tight and it doesn't get where it's going as fast. Cantwell clearly has the strongest arm, but seems to hang onto the ball a little too long and struggles with accuracy.

I'd say Clausen has a better arm than Moore, but of course I've never seen them side by side like you have.

Pike's probably not got the arm to be a starter in this league. He has a lot of admirable intangibles though - I think he can be a valuable back up with some seasoning.

Oh and I'm reading everywhere that Edwards is dropping a lot of catches (and muffing a few punts/kick offs). Is it really that noticeable?

Thanks for the previous reply btw. Interesting to get the opinion of someone at the event.

[Jpjr]

His arm looks good to me. I've been making a point of comparing the velocity and accuracy of the QB's and Clausen is right up there with Moore in both categories (except for some of Clausen's accuracy issues on short crossing routes that have already been mentioned). There is a noticable step down in both velocity and accuracy with Pike, spiral is not as tight and it doesn't get where it's going as fast. Cantwell clearly has the strongest arm, but seems to hang onto the ball a little too long and struggles with accuracy.

Thanks a lot - a lot of us are extremely interested to hear anything we can about the QB situation.

As for Clausen, I'm concerned about him checking down but not that concerned. I really think its a function of Weis beating the check down into him. As you saw at ND, his picks went from 17 in 2008 to 4 in 2009. In that sense its good. But on the other side, he's got to balance it with a downfield threat. You saw what he is capable of last year so it isn't ability its just confidence. He always stresses timing, so I'm guessing once he feels like he has timing down with his receivers he will start to open it up. Kind of refreshing though since rookies are NOTORIOUS for picks starting with Matthew Stafford on down....

[RoachKiller]

Or like he did against real defenses Notre Dame played' date=' he is tentative to pull the trigger on the long ball resulting in a ton of check downs....[/quote']