Another nice day in Ashburn, Virginia as the Washington Redskins took to the field for another day of training camp. Again Redskin Park was packed with a few thousand fans of the burgundy and gold, and fans were showing up hours before the start of the afternoon’s festivities.
Saturday was the first of two-a-day practices, with just the afternoon practice being open to the public. Two Redskin draft picks were injured in the closed practice Saturday morning – H.B. Blades and Tyler Ecker. They were carted off the field and did not practice in the afternoon session. It has been reported that Ecker suffered a groin injury of some type, and that Blades was suffering from cramps.
Laron Landry is still not practicing as he doesn’t have a contract yet, but word is that a deal is imminent and that Landry should be out on the field soon.
Here are some observations from the second day of practice:
1) Jason Campbell was on. He looked decent on Friday, but he actually looked great on Saturday. During passing drills, Campbell hit pass after pass and of varying length and type, but his best pass was a deep ball to Brandon Lloyd. Lloyd was running stride for stride with Fred Smoot, but when the ball looked unreachable, Brandon hit another gear and ran under the ball for the catch.
2) Casey Bramlet has a lot of eyes on him. After a stellar NFLE season, he’s trying to prove that he deserves the number three quarterback slot. He looked good in passing drills as well as he repeatedly hit his target accurately. Most were short passes to early reads, but the passes themselves were crisp.
3) The Redskins offensive line will be huge in 2007. Even the backups and soon-to-be-cuts all look massive this year.
4) Lloyd made arguably the best play of the eleven-on-elevens as well. He lined up in the slot, ran what looked like just a quick hitch and turned back for the ball. Campbell fired it right into his chest and with one quick turn, Lloyd had beat his defender and took off for the end zone. Nobody was going to catch him and the crowd cheered mightily as he sprinted all the way to the goal line.
5) Lemar Marshall put a whack on undrafted rookie running back Marcus Mason. Mason caught a short pass but was unceremoniously stopped dead in his tracks. To his credit, Mason managed to hold on to the ball.
6) Alex Buzbee might be someone to watch. He’s a local product out of Georgetown and he made several good pass rushes in the eleven-on-elevens that forced quarterbacks to throw the ball early. Considering the Redskins paltry sack total last season, keep an eye on how he progresses through camp. He might be a good project.
7) Ade Jimoh thought about putting a lick on Chris Cooley on a high, overthrown pass. It seemed like Jimoh pulled up at the very last second (maybe he realized that it was Cooley and not a wide receiver), but it was still a pretty good collision. Neither player was hurt, but Jimoh did get up a little slowly. Rock star Cooley didn’t seem phased in the slightest.
8) This will probably seem like a silly point, but Joe Bugel must have lost close to 40 pounds. It might not affect the Redskins much, and the average Redskin fan might not care, but seeing Buges look so lean and mean is great.
9) Sean Taylor showed that he’s not exactly the devil spawn that he’s made out to be. A young boy mistakenly called Taylor, Smoot, (likely because of the number 21) and the grace with which Taylor handled it was marvelous. Taylor just said, “What’s your name little man? My name is Sean and thanks for coming out today.” Very professional, very cute, and to be quite honest, it just came off as a very kind, genuine gesture. Well played Mr. Taylor. (Check out THN’s blog section for a little more detailed account)
10) Quite a few of the players were out signing autographs for what seemed like a long time on Saturday. Casey Rabach, Jon Jansen, Santana Moss, Brandon Lloyd, and Joe Gibbs were all out for 15-20 minutes thrilling the fans with some face time.
The Saturday practice was definitely not as sharp and crisp as Friday’s. There were a few more dropped passes and things of that nature, but it was likely due to fatigue with it being the first two-a-day.
Sunday will be the first of two Fan Appreciation Days at Redskin Park – which this year just means that the band and cheerleaders will perform before the regular practice. There will be no autograph signing sessions.
Edit: This blog was archived in May of 2016 from our original articles database.It was originally posted by Mark Solway