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GoldAppleCorps

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  1. Thomas Harley to get 8 years at 10.6 million per. https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/46762588/dallas-stars-d-thomas-harley-nets-8-year-extension Front office showing a lot of faith here.
  2. I saw them pick up a couple of stunts and twist, the kind that previously had them chasing rushers into the backfield helplessly. On one 3rd and 2, Wisner couldn't get through a gap, but that was ok because the line has displaced the LOS by 3 yards to earn the 1st down. Neither of these things were happening consistently before yesterday. The OL wasn't a full on asset. They stopped being a liability, and that was huge progress in one week. It's 1 week sample, but I might allow myself optimism that we've got the right mix in the stew.
  3. I remember how shocking it was to learn that Adrian Peterson made a miraculous comeback from his ankle injury. Through sheer will and personal awesomeness, he healed his leg! Then I watched him take pitch after pitch and casually jog out of bounds for a quarter and a half. He couldn't cut upfield if you gave him a moped.
  4. On paper, these are very complementary lines. Sam Steel is a perfect guy to dig pucks out of piles, back check an attempted breakout, and just generally do the grind work between Roope and Mikko. If you wanted all offense, you might swap Robo or Wyatt for him, but rolling in a game, you'd like Sam to set up his line mates for pretty play. Alternatively, he can collect the garbage when the opposition sends all their guys in panic mode to Mikko and Roope. I'm personally interested in the development of Lian Bischel this season. I think, at the end of last season, he was starting to get comfortable with the level of physicality a player his size should exhibit at the NHL level.
  5. There's a billion nuances to OL play that I don't understand. There's targeting shoulders with hand placement, reading slants, passing loopers off to teammates, etc, etc. It's a highly technical arena. However, it starts with being connected to the playing surface. The ground. Building a strong, solid base with your feet, keeping your body mass positioned over that base, and firing your power up from the Earth, through your legs, torso, arms and into your opponent. An OL who's off his feet is just a projectile. He's less than useless, because he's going to trip his own team. If you were going to draw the best OL player ever, you'd draw Conor Stroh. Massive. The right height. Strong. Everything ready to dominate! But he won't get his butt down! He plays high, standing straight up and down. He leans over his feet. With his body mass now high in the air and away from his base, a grandma could pull him over. He's beaten by physics. None of the other techniques or attributes are worth mentioning, because he won't stay connected to the ground. This is killing me to say, because all the potential in the world is right there. Maybe get him paired with a Sumo master for a week or two. Get the feel for what a strong base is and how to use it when an opponent tries to disrupt it. Learn it, and let me see what all that power can do. Otherwise, he's unplayable.
  6. All us oldsters wanna know why he's calling Pizza Hut
  7. Roster building is a thing. If you got to spring camp and had to spend all your money on a transfer QB because your room didn't have any usable parts in it, that's on you. Football is a physical game, and players get hurt frequently. You know the season won't stop until they heal, so just picking 22 starters and deciding that'll get you through the season isn't smart.
  8. I got to see the game live from my perch high above the North endzone with the rest of the poor but faithful. I wanted to take a win as a given, and to try and watch critically. I was happy to see us put the defense out on the field first, and of course, the defense did exactly what we've come to expect. When Texas got the ball, my stomach sank as Arch promptly did what we're used to from him. His feet were happy. He jittered around. He tossed passes at odd arm angles. One hit the OL and was lucky to be incomplete instead of a short-field INT. The OL put the offense behind the sticks with penalties. The usual. Arch then started with baby steps. His passes hit stationary receivers in the knees. They were able to grab them for 1st downs. Then, he was hitting receivers in the hands on curl routes. Small flats. Easy outs. He tried one deep out (right hash to far left boundary) and sailed it 3 feet wide. Came back and hit the same out perfectly. Moved on to crossers. Hit moving targets in front in the hands. Slants on time and in rhythm. He was largely moving through the WR passing tree. Coming out of halftime, was the 9 route to Wingo. A little uncertain, but took the correctly necessary crow-hop to fling a ball that went directly over 1's shoulder into the basket (Wingo's gotta start grabbing passes with hands and not body them). Directly after, he relied on instinct to smash a quick slant fastball to Wingo as pressure got home. Touchdown. Yeah, it's a sample size of one, against one of the weakest teams in FBS. However, the opponent didn't cause the struggles over the last 2 games. Arch can clearly do the job when he stays out of his own head.
  9. It's like 6 notes in an ascending / descending 3rd progression. Pretty sure it's an etude for learning your horn in the 5th grade.
  10. Baylor's offense should be physical and salty. They have a variety of ways to advance the ball, but little home-run power. Baylor could starve Auburn's offense by holding on to the ball all game. On the other hand, I have zero confidence in Baylor's ability to defend a pass. If he's unbothered, I believe Arnold is still good enough to hit open receivers. A couple of "hey, I thought you had that guy!" defensive miscues could be enough to swamp the game.
  11. (visions of Winfred Tubbs playing with both hands casted up to the elbow)
  12. Crowd noise could affect a new OL playing together for the first time - particularly one with a new C. A few false start penalties won't surprise me, and are the home crowd's reward for a job well done. Crowd noise won't affect a competent QB. They're already used to playing silently with signals. Get the play call over the headset or from the sidelines, identify your key reads on defense (using motion to tip coverages if applicable), signal your hot reads, the snap on a count. Verify your read was correct (otherwise adjust) and let the ball rip on time and on target. The longer a play goes on, the more the chance of an open receiver approaches 100%. Texas ruined the reputation of some stellar DBs when the DL couldn't ever get to the QB. I do not expect that to be a problem this season. Our DBs will be told to stay in the hip pocket of the receiver until the QB is on the ground. It shouldn't be a long wait. Now swagger is unmatched. Gawd help us if the swagger is unleashed.
  13. I wanted to tie his shoulder pads to his knee pads. He wanted to juke like a scatback when his job was to smash through whatever was in his way. There's a reason he made a lot of money as a DT.
  14. Think about playing defense against Texas last season. When the QB and RB mesh, there's only two outcomes. Option one was an outside zone run by the RB. Option two was "play action". The QB kept it and prepared to throw. If you're a LB, you don't have to track an inside run or a QB keep. It just wasn't going to come up. Like most OCs, Sark's offense is designed to make the defense wrong in the passing game. That's why having Arch work 2 years with him is so important. It isn't reliant on outrageous QB physical gifts so much as seeing pre-snap what the defense is dictating, confirming the cues after the snap, and delivering an accurate ball to the correct area. The QB doesn't deliberately attack the secondary. If the Safety(ies) get pulled either to run support or middle zone coverage, then the ball goes deep to whichever shoulder the defender isn't covering. Texas, obviously, plays a rich share of top notch athletes. It's only wise, then, that the opposing defense would cheat to cover Texas' strengths while risking limitations. Not playing the QB keep and betting the deep ball would be late (enabling Safety recovery) or inaccurate was their best hope. I'm not needing anything approaching VY level heroics from Arch. I need him to take the 5-10 yards donated when the defense ignores him. I need him to punish the "defender on an island" coverage. Just drawing the defenders out and making them play honest will allow the rest of the offense to win their 1 on 1 battles.
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