Friday, August 14: After An Evening's Reflection
Posted by Matt Terl on August 14, 2009 – 8:51 am
There are a lot of things I don’t like about preseason games. They’re something of a tease, for one. You wait and wait and wait for football to FINALLY come back into your life, and just when you think it’s time, you get preseason instead.
And the whole mindset of preseason games is frustrating too. It’s a game, but it isn’t. You’re supposed to care, but not really. You devote three-plus hours of your time to watching it, but are repeatedly told it doesn’t mean anything.
The things that I like least about preseason, though, is how quickly I forget what it’s actually about when I’m looking at a final score. Last night was an example of this with a negative scoreboard result, and I’ll get to it momentarily, but I’ll start with one where it was all too easy to get sucked in: Osaka.
If, for some reason, that one word doesn’t tell you everything that you need to know, let me recap quickly: Steve Spurrier took over as coach of the Redskins with a ton of hype and fanfare. His offense was supposed to put up the same kind of points in the pros as it had in college, and the team’s preseason debut in Osaka, Japan, against the 49ers was the first chance he had to demonstrate that.
And demonstrate it he did, unleashing nearly 480 yards of offense in a 38-7 preseason beatdown. As a fan, I forgot the cardinal rule of preseason — it’s only preseason — and let myself get excited. That did not end well, to say the least.
So we come to last night, and I’ve got a fairly specific list of things I’m watching. To recap quickly:
- Jason Campbell, hopefully in very limited work.
- Hunter Smith, the ultimate punting weapon.
- The right side of the offensive line, especially Chad Rinehart.
- Who was making tackles on special teams, per Kirk Olivadotti’s recommendation.
- The kickers, in field goal and kickoff situations.
- And, most important, no one getting hurt.
And honestly? Most of those things showed up either pretty well (or incomplete, in the case of the kickers), and yet I finished the game feeling worried and disappointed because of the result on the scoreboard. Here, let’s run down the list.
Campbell looked solid if unremarkable, but seemed much more confident than last year, seeing his receivers better and looking downfield more. Coach Jim Zorn’s post-game comments on him were highly complimentary as well: “I thought he was very sharp; we protected him very well. We kind of mixed it up a little bit. We ended up not getting into the end zone, but I was pleased with the drives, and I really felt it was going to continue with this but I had to get him out.” And he had time, which was good to see.
Hunter Smith punted more times last night — nine times! — than he did in all of last preseason, but he still finished with a respectable 37.1 yard average.
The first-team offensive line was actually pretty impressive, and the buzz in the post-game locker room was largely pleased with their performance. In fact, as the Washington Post‘s Jason Reid notes, the only time Campbell was visibly pressured by the Ravens first-team defense was when the tight end was beaten by a linebacker. The question mark guys — Stephon Heyer, Mike Williams, Rinehart — all acquitted themselves adequately.
Guys were flying to the ball in special teams, both vets like Todd Yoder, younger guys like Robert Henson, and longshot guys like Robert Thomas.
The kickers, as noted, get an incomplete.
And the one that’s labeled “most important” right there is the one that I forgot most: no one got seriously hurt. There were some strains and the occasional eye poke, but for the most part the same group of guys that need to get reps together will be back out on the field facing the Steelers a week from tomorrow. And that’s what really matters.
Not the scoreboard — Osaka taught us that. Not how Colt Brennan looked — which didn’t matter last year, when he looked good, and didn’t matter last night when he didn’t. All that matters in the end is that no one got hurt.
They get the chance to do better next Saturday; I’ll try to do better myself, at remembering how to react to preseason.
Tags: baltimore ravens, BaltimoreRavens, preseason
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