stevewin

I never got all the criticism even for the earlier PCs/interviews - to me he always spoke fine

It's been well documented how he put on weight this offseason, when I saw him in person at practice yesterday he looked huge - it was striking to me

Yesterday at practice I also noticed Jones in the backfield a lot

I dont think the reduced time at SJF is a one-time thing this year based on new defense or stadium.. It's been trending to less time there for a while. 7-10 days gives them a short 'bonding' time while meeting some amt of availability to fans. There is real benefit for being able to maximize use of superior state of the art facilities at home. I expect that the shorter 7-10 day stay will be the new norm going forward.

Vrabel

It was good - since it is subscription I don't think audio is generally avail to link. I posted some comments earlier in this thread

And then to color it with "Benford just dominated the route" - wtf?

I keep seeing the title and reading "Gets his A$$"

Not sure what Thad was watching - DJ just slipped on wet grass and fell in front of Benford. DJ went down and Benford was standing behind him and the ball went right to him

This was 100% push-off OPI when seen live at practice

Random observations from today's practice - Going out to the field in the tunnel DJ saw his family and gave each of his 3 little kids a hug - a nice heartwarming scene to start practice - The sun is out in full force and it's already baking in the stands at 8:30 -ST stuff to start practice - Landon Jackson looks huge on the sidelines even when standing next to Parker - Stone is more stout than I thought - thick lower body. During ST period on sideline he spent some time to give Pride some pointers when they came off - Defense goes off to 3rd field and offense going through a set of various drill stations. Watched the QBs go around - first one was run dive into pad and QBs didn't actually dive, another one was run with ball through gauntlet guys try to poke it out- when Josh went through better believe no one was poking hard at him - WR/CB 1-1s midfield - Palmer gets in scuffle with IGB right off the bat - some facemask grabbing and not much else - Bell completion, Pride fell - Alford nice pbu vs Sherfield - Kyle Allen bad overthrow open receiver deep - Maclin nice contested catch vs Pride - nice throw Buechele - Quentin Skinner sick hesitation move on comeback to get open easy completion - Nice contested catch DJ - IGB beautiful coverage to break up sideline route to Palmer - Kani Walker pbu vs Bell over middle - Contested ball on sideline goes thru Gosnell hands hard to tell if defender hit it - Sherfield comeback completion vs Jordan Dunbar - Pettis nice crossing route completion vs Hancock - Keon couldn't come down with sideline pass - couldn't tell if defender knocked out - Gosnell beats Walker clean on a slant - During this session IGB was playing with a noticeable edge - Merciful clouds - Couldn't tell how skinny/fat Dion was - was wearing a long black shirt under his jersey - maybe a choice bc he thought it was slimming... (like 40lbs slimming?) - Offense half speed vs D down field - assume going over new plays - 9:15 sun back out in all it's blazing baking glory - 1st team 11--11 - Josh to Cook over middle 10 yds - Keon 15 yd crosser - Kincaid 10 yd cross turns up field for td 50 yds - not sure if they blew it down before - Cook hits a brick wall named Hoecht up the middle - completely stonewalled him - Shakir 10 yd underneath - Beautiful scramble ny Josh to his right and throw downfield from 40 to Keon in middle of field at 10 but he dropped it - Not sure how notable but for next group Beuchele started before K Allen - Notice Landon Jackson also looks big out on the field - 1st team 11-11 (looks like all 3rd and 10 situational) - Cook 5 yd middle Williams stop - Groot pass batted down - Quick throw to Davis in flat turns upfield for 10 yds - 50 yd bomb Hairston step for step with Hartman- incomplete but Hardman terrible play on ball (IMO) - Davis 10 yd run up middle - Kincaid nice contested catch on comeback at sticks - big hit from IGB, stopped a yd short - Pettis 30 yd "TD" - totally pushed off OPI - Noticed Andre Jones in backfield a lot with 2s - 9:45 clouds and cool breeze - Proof of Life - Tyler Bass kicks in front of crowd! - 9:52 light rain feels good 1st team 11-11 - Shakir 5 yd middle hit but held on - Ty Johnson 5yd off tackle - Chubb would be sack - Raining hard now - Keon 10 yd bullet - tough catch in rain - Oliver tfl on cook up the middle - Hard rain turns lighter 10:05 1s again - Dump off Johnson 2 yds - Nice 20 yd sideline catch Keon back shoulder wet ball light rain - Benford int - DJ fell down and ball went right to him - When Oliver came out after this last session he looked totally gassed- plopped down on a cooler and sat there for a bit - With the 2's, Hancock completely destroyed a RB on a blitz - put him right on his back - very demonstrative after. Later had an EZ int on ball thrown up by K Allen - Practice fizzled out as rain did, last portion offense half speed plays vs defense - IGB stood out - lots of energy during and after play - Landon Jackson is big - There were multiple plays with 1st team I thought would have been called dead for sack with someone right next to Josh but they either didn't call it a sack or did but let play go (didn't hear whistles) - Compared to other practices in past years there was less shuttling groups to the 3rd/hidden field. Not sure if this is a Brady vs McD effect or just the makeup of this particular practice - Was surprised there were no refs esp with all the 11-11 they had planned. I thought the trend was going towards having refs almost every practice- maybe that will come later - There was a Shakir bubble screen sighting! - After terrible drop Keon had some nice catches on tough (wet) balls in rain - Kind of a weird practice to me. Felt energy was different (less) in stands with earlier start. The change from baking sun to nice refreshing light rain to annoying heavy rain back to baking sun was kind of distracting from the stands - it was no doubt good for the players tho - Other note: I thought the earlier start would mean cool in the stands at least for the first part of practice but I was wrong. Also, trying to get my 91 yo Dad and very laid back brother woken up and out the door by 6:30 AM for the drive from my Dad's house in Lancaster was quite the challenge - herding two very tired slow lethargic cats out the door

I heard some guys on the radio talking yesterday that practicing earlier was also a change McCarthy made in Pitt - said it gave coaches more time in the day to go over tape from practice to use in meetings later in the day

19 groins

Just finished listening to all of it. There was some good conversation there. Few things that stood out - Multiple times they commented on how KEO was all over the field. During convo with Beane there was also a lot of praise for him - stepping in right away, can wear the green dot, etc - Beane mentioned it took a bit for the light to come on with Sanders re: physicality - he got his knee scoped in middle of the year and Beane felt the break was kind of a reset for him. They felt he needed to get stronger - whenever there wasn't a meeting and everyone else was on the practice field they sent him to the weight room. He finished much stronger (play and physically) after that period in his opinion - interesting part of Josh convo was him talking about how multiple the defense is with guys potentially coming from everywhere, and how it will help prepare against other teams where more teams in the league are running defenses with multiple looks - They really praised how crisp both offense and Defense were for just first full day in pads they thought was amazing. Offense using some kind of shift/motion every play without any confusion/mistakes and Defense reacting seamlessly. Said it is kind of unheard of to not have coaches having to constantly be correcting this early first day in pads - Hester (host) played in the league with Leonhard and throughout heaped praise on him what a smart player and a dog he was - With Chubb they talked about how Leonhard has so many different things installed and Chubb said in OTAs guys heads were swimming but they have a handle on it now - I personally don't get the hate by some for Brady's interview style - he always comes off fine to me - Said they counted 6 fights/skirmishes

I'm listening to the siriusxm replay and they said there were six fights (skirmishes) today?