2021 Training Camp and Pre-season News and Chatter

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Thanks for the obs, Stripes. If you happened to have any general wrap-up thoughts at some point, consider me and others all ears. 

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Good wrap up of the day from Lap and Hoard w/ video:

 

[COB]

On 7/23/2021 at 10:17 AM, membengal said:

54!

Force plates show output twice as powerful!

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Ain’t gonna argue with force plates. That’s Yoda-level shit.

sneaky good read here on possible defense progress:

 

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In warmups yesterday:

 

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Really good summary of day here from Petraglia:

 

[Stripes]

My main takeaway was that the defense was generally looking pretty spicy. The coverage, including at linebacker, was strong all day. To what extent that will translate to game day I can’t say — separation was clearly not a Bengals pass catcher strength a year ago. But it’s promising enough.

Pooka looked like he was struggling to me. He had a punt return muff and didn’t look like the prototype of explosiveness sometimes advertised.

Irwin might actually make the team. Strong immediate rapport with Burrow.

Hard to judge the players in the trenches in this setting knowing they can’t properly maul each other. I am excited about our bookends though (Jonah and Reiff).

The fans are absolutely amped. The air of positivity is infectious, and I didn’t note a lot of the usual jaded resignation that hope is evil. Gotta start the season well to sustain that with these traumatized people.

Grain of salt to all that. My attention was divided all over the field much of the time.

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Thanks Stripes. The buzz of hope from the fan base is fascinating to me given the last several years. Maybe we are all trying to will good things for a change.  I am out of likes for the day or would give you another one.

here’s lap on day 4:

 

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Rest day today for the players.

I think the schedule this week is practice Monday - Wednesday and then again Friday - Sunday. Pads for first time on Tuesday.

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Morrison's rising and falling column this AM on The Athletic (take it all w/ a grain of salt - we are not even to pads yet...):

https://theathletic.com/2745468/2021/08/02/bengals-stock-report-whos-up-and-whos-down-after-the-first-week-of-camp/

Quote

 

It doesn’t take long to start shuffling the deck in training camp, as the first few days of Bengals practices have shown.

After a helmets-only practice Monday, the Bengals will enter the second phase of training camp Tuesday when they practice in full pads for the first time. In the NBA, they say a playoff series doesn’t truly start until the home team loses a game. For offensive and defensive linemen, training camp doesn’t truly start until the pads pop.

Before that happens, we wanted to use Sunday’s first off day to assess what we’ve seen in the acclimation period and identify which players are rising and falling.

Here are the lists, featuring five of each:

Rising
Trent Taylor

In his pre-camp 53-man roster projection, Paul Dehner Jr. had Taylor winning the final wide receiver spot based on his experience as a punt returner and ability to play in the slot as a backup to Tyler Boyd. But whatever inside track Taylor might have had coming into camp has been eclipsed by his playmaking abilities in the first few practices, especially in Friday and Saturday’s red-zone-heavy sessions. Taylor has been a frequent target for backup quarterbacks Brandon Allen and Kyle Shurmur, including a touchdown from the former Saturday in front of the fans at Paul Brown Stadium, but he’s been working in with the first-teamers and catching balls from Joe Burrow as well. Taylor’s ability as a punt returner — 49 attempts for 471 yards in three seasons with the 49ers — was going to be his trump card, but he might not even need it with the way he’s playing at wide receiver.

Khalid Kareem

His rookie year never got on track because of a lingering labrum issue at the start of training camp. He appeared in all 16 games, but it was telling that he played less than 25 percent of the snaps on a defensive line battered by injuries. Kareem has been healthy since the start of OTAs but still figured to face a battle for a roster spot from rookie draft picks Cam Sample and Wyatt Hubert. But with Hubert out for the year and Sample working solely on the rehab field, Kareem has jumped into the rotation at defensive end and stamped his name as an early contender to be the team’s most improved player. Whether it’s getting into the backfield to apply pressure, setting the edge on runs or staying disciplined and blowing up jet sweeps, Kareem has consistently been making plays.

Xavier Su’a-Filo

It looked in OTAs as though the veteran guard, who lost 10 games to a foot injury last year, would be relegated to backing up second-round pick Jackson Carman at best, or possibly even would be a veteran roster cut. But he’s now on the fast train to starting at right guard in the season opener against the Vikings. Offensive line coach Frank Pollack has never shied away from starting rookies on his offensive lines (Mekhi Becton last year with the Jets, Billy Price here in 2018, La’el Collins with the Cowboys in 2015, among others), so it’s clear that Su’a-Filo earned his reps with what he has done on and off the field this spring and summer and not simply because of his veteran status. Putting the pads on Tuesday could be a game-changer, but Su’a-Filo appears to have worked his way into a solid spot as a starter.

Markus Bailey

The knee injury that Bailey suffered in his final season at Purdue may have healed, but the 2020 seventh-round pick never fully recovered from falling behind as a spectator in OTAs. He made the opening 53-man roster and appeared in 11 games, but he played just 44 defensive snaps (4.2 percent). With the de facto redshirt season behind him, Bailey has been in the mix and making plays at linebacker, including a pass defense in the end zone during Friday’s red-zone work. Bailey was one of the young players most affected by the lack of preseason games last year. He’ll get a chance to see action this month, and he’s earning extra reps with each practice.

Trey Hopkins

What Hopkins has done to be fully cleared for the start of camp in just less than seven months is remarkable. And the fact that he didn’t take a snap in 11-on-11 work in the first week of practices does nothing to change that, nor does it preclude his being on this list. The Bengals are just being cautious with their starting center, and head coach Zac Taylor’s announcement Saturday that Hopkins will take part in team drills when the pads go on Tuesday is another sign that Hopkins is on the rise.

Falling
Jackson Carman

Cue the Tom Petty track. The Bengals said they expected Carman to compete for a starting spot at guard when they picked him in the second round, and they ran him out there with the starters for OTAs. Whether it was the way he played or prepared or retained or whatever, they saw enough that they didn’t like that Carman has been taking third-team snaps (and second) early in camp. Sometimes teams can take that approach to send a message, but this feels like a lot more than that. The Bengals have seen enough to believe entrusting Carman with protecting Burrow isn’t in their best interest just yet. The rookie has a steep climb ahead.

Auden Tate

Let’s be clear, this is falling the way slipping off the final step of the staircase on your morning descent is falling. It’s just that Tate has been the star of training camp the past few years, and that hasn’t been the case through the first week. Yes, he’s made some impressive, strong-handed grabs in traffic, but he’s also had a couple of drops. And Saturday a ball was raked free of his grasp. With a clear-cut — and healthy — top three receivers, Tate is getting fewer opportunities to make the acrobatic types of catches we’ve come to expect from him at this time of year. Like the offensive and defensive linemen, Tate should benefit from putting on the pads and getting more physical with the defensive backs.

Larry Ogunjobi

Ogunjobi suffered a hamstring issue in the conditioning test Tuesday and has yet to practice. Taylor has been vague about the severity of the injury, saying only that the defensive tackle will be reevaluated early this week to see where he is. The interior of the defensive line is one of the thinnest groups on the team, and next to Burrow, Ogunjobi might be the player the Bengals can least afford to lose. Ogunjobi suffered a hamstring injury in camp with the Browns last year and had the least productive season of his career.

Austin Seibert

Much like Tate’s, Seibert’s fall is relative. He’s not so much falling as being held down by rookie Evan McPherson in what has been a scorching start to the competition. The feeling ever since the Bengals took McPherson in the fifth round of the draft was that the rookie would need to have a terrible camp not to win the job, and that clearly is not the case. McPherson is 14-for-15, with his lone miss coming from 60 yards inside PBS on Saturday. Seibert is 13-of-15 after missing the same 60-yarder and one from 45 earlier in the week. Even matching McPherson kick for kick won’t be enough for Seibert, and through one week he’s already slightly behind.

Pooka Williams

Williams’ inclusion here is the yang to Trent Taylor’s yin. The undrafted rookie has made some impressive plays in his switch to wide receiver, most notably a tough recovery for a reception after a tipped pass in Friday’s practice. But he’s falling behind Taylor as a receiving option and especially as a punt returner. Williams hasn’t put the ball on the ground, but his inexperience shows as he looks unsure and unsteady as he tracks balls in the air. He’ll have a huge opportunity to gain ground in the preseason games just as Alex Erickson did in winning the job as an undrafted rookie in 2016. But through one week, Williams is losing ground in a bid to make the roster.

 

 

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