So far this week has brought us the first two padded practices of the Jerod Mayo Era.
Which gets us one baby step closer to actual football.
Scrimmages during inter-squad practices would be historic battlefield reenactments.
And padded practices are sort of playing army in the backyard using toy guns.
But since with this metaphor, non-padded practices are pointing your finger at each other and makingPew!
Pew!sounds, it’s still a big upgrade.
And I’m here so you don’t have to be.
–The most significant change from Monday:
… was that Matthew Judon was nowhere to be seen.
And assume Judon was only too happy to oblige.
It’s a lousy situation all around.
And with him no-showing at practice, it’s hard to imagine this ending in anything but a breakup.
But he ended up playing 280 of his 513 defensive snaps between the tackles.
After winning four games in a season where I was expecting 10, I haven’t ruled that out.
Or anything, for that matter.
–All this and we’re only a week into camp.
This is, for all intents and purposes and for the foreseeable future, Jacoby Brissett’s team.
That was especially clear after the two padded practices.
Nor should you be.
This isn’t Mac Jones regressing under Matt Patricia and Bill O’Brien.
This is an entire team undergoing a fundamental change in how it’s operated.
Different nomenclature, reads, calls, blocking assignments, progressions, routes.
I look at this the way I did the aliens teaching the five tones in Close Encounters.
It’s a whole new language that is going to take time.
On a planetary scale.
Which fortunately, this team has.
And so does Maye.
Until then, we’ve got Brissett to do all the talking for us.
Even when he’s not.
As pathetic as that may sound.
A team still shuffling the deck along its offensive line needs all these practices it can get.
First so they can get work done.
But my focus was on the fat guys.
But in no way was this the kind of padded practice the way you picture it.
For the most part, this was more instructional.
Then Wise got inside of Okorafor for what would’ve been a pressure, at least.
Backup center Charles Turner fought Sam Roberts to a standstill.
Did I lose you?
I got lost in my own minutiae for a minute there.
But it was breathtaking for those of us fortunate enough to witness it through binoculars from 150 yards away.
Hopefully that’s a product of the new system we’ve already discussed ad nauseum.
In fact, unofficially the offense hasn’t scored a single touchdown in seven practices.
But for the most part, it still has that first week of first grade feel to it.
And who just seems to have that sort of JC Jackson energy of always being around the ball.
But there’s a ways to go there.
2" CD, Queen’s “We Will Rock You.”
Thus gaining in crowd reaction whatever he lost in originality.
As a bonus, we did get to hear Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal.”
