GregR_2
Footballguy
Went to the Texans morning training camp today. Here were my impressions.
The defense took the field close to the stands for the first set of unit drills, meaning we didn't have a good view of the receiving drills. :( Not a lot stood out in the drills, though Polk seemed to be a guy who kept dropping passes on interception drills.
Then they moved to various scrimmages, 9-on-9 with no wide receivers, 6 on 7 with no O or D line, 11-on-11, etc. We were split on whether RB Domanic Davis or RB Chris Taylor looked best amongst the RBs, but agreed both looked better than Antowain, Morency and Lundy, none of which seemed to separate themselves from the other 2. Morency had a fumble which the D returned for a TD.
Chris Taylor showed a lot of burst and speed. However I don't recall seeing him run inside at all. Also, these are the non-contact drills and it could be hard to tell if a defender would have had him down or not, so a small fast guy like him is probably going to look better than an Antowain Smith going into a hole in the pile. In any event, I'm planning to keep an eye on him in the preseason games and see how he handles contact as he is a small guy, but he definitely outperformed Smith/Morency/Lundy in the drills in my mind.
DD looked good. I didn't notice any hesitance in his cuts at all and he showed good speed. He looked like he might have been a little heavy, not surprising if he's just getting back to being able to work out fully again. But I didn't see any limping or anything that suggested he was favoring his knee.
Moulds didn't practice that we saw. Carr seemed to zero in on AJ quite a bit in the passing scrimmages they were both in... no surprise there. Of course AJ was getting open more than others, but as in the regular season there were times Carr seemed to not see anything and then just throw it up to let AJ go get it. Most of the time the result was a completion... there was one interception though on a fantastic play by the DB.. no clue who he was, his number wasn't on the roster I took.
AJ looked very good. Walters missed a pass or two he I thought he could have had, but he also had some nice plays including a 50 yard TD. One long-shot WR to keep an eye on was Derrick Lewis. He made several plays that had me looking up his number to see who he was, and showed some good speed. He outran the secondary on one play and would have had a TD but he was overthrown.
Putzier and Joppru both looked pretty good and had some nice catches. Bruener got a lot of reps but didn't get targetted nearly as much. Joppru had a nice touchdown and showed some decent speed for a TE. There were quite a lot of passes going to the TEs, and also quite a few short passes, slants and hooks. They did go deep as well, but the short passing game seemed to be more the norm. (Edit to add: On rookie Owen Daniels, he only drew my notice two or three times... one was in 11-on-11 on a blitz and he apparently didn't make the read because the QB practically hit him with the ball and he had never looked back.)
On the D side during the scrimmages, most of my attention was on Mario Williams. Initially I felt he was getting eaten up at the line on running plays if he was playing an inside gap, but by the end he reversed my opinion and had some running plays I felt he would have dropped at the line or for a loss and held up well against the run block. When he lined up out on the outside, his speed looked hard for the defense to block and I observed he was held a few times. (Of course, this is the Texans pass blocking we're talking about, so use amount of salt you feel appropriate).
I'm generally sparing of praise for Philip Buchanon, but he had one really nice pass defense on AJ. If he can show as much heart in tackling.... speaking of which, I heard on the news last night that Dunta put on 15 lbs of muscle in the off-season, though he didn't look appreciably bigger to me. He still seemed to have good speed and made a few good plays.
I don't know if I'd say the pass blocking looked appreciably better than during the last regular season, but then the pass rush is a lot better and probably has an advantage in the lack of pads. I wouldn't worry about it yet in any event. Keyed in on watching Eric Winston at RT a few plays and he looked good to me. Also I heard comments from others that Charles Spencer was looking very good, but I hadn't focused on him enough to give my own opinion.
The defense took the field close to the stands for the first set of unit drills, meaning we didn't have a good view of the receiving drills. :( Not a lot stood out in the drills, though Polk seemed to be a guy who kept dropping passes on interception drills.
Then they moved to various scrimmages, 9-on-9 with no wide receivers, 6 on 7 with no O or D line, 11-on-11, etc. We were split on whether RB Domanic Davis or RB Chris Taylor looked best amongst the RBs, but agreed both looked better than Antowain, Morency and Lundy, none of which seemed to separate themselves from the other 2. Morency had a fumble which the D returned for a TD.
Chris Taylor showed a lot of burst and speed. However I don't recall seeing him run inside at all. Also, these are the non-contact drills and it could be hard to tell if a defender would have had him down or not, so a small fast guy like him is probably going to look better than an Antowain Smith going into a hole in the pile. In any event, I'm planning to keep an eye on him in the preseason games and see how he handles contact as he is a small guy, but he definitely outperformed Smith/Morency/Lundy in the drills in my mind.
DD looked good. I didn't notice any hesitance in his cuts at all and he showed good speed. He looked like he might have been a little heavy, not surprising if he's just getting back to being able to work out fully again. But I didn't see any limping or anything that suggested he was favoring his knee.
Moulds didn't practice that we saw. Carr seemed to zero in on AJ quite a bit in the passing scrimmages they were both in... no surprise there. Of course AJ was getting open more than others, but as in the regular season there were times Carr seemed to not see anything and then just throw it up to let AJ go get it. Most of the time the result was a completion... there was one interception though on a fantastic play by the DB.. no clue who he was, his number wasn't on the roster I took.
AJ looked very good. Walters missed a pass or two he I thought he could have had, but he also had some nice plays including a 50 yard TD. One long-shot WR to keep an eye on was Derrick Lewis. He made several plays that had me looking up his number to see who he was, and showed some good speed. He outran the secondary on one play and would have had a TD but he was overthrown.
Putzier and Joppru both looked pretty good and had some nice catches. Bruener got a lot of reps but didn't get targetted nearly as much. Joppru had a nice touchdown and showed some decent speed for a TE. There were quite a lot of passes going to the TEs, and also quite a few short passes, slants and hooks. They did go deep as well, but the short passing game seemed to be more the norm. (Edit to add: On rookie Owen Daniels, he only drew my notice two or three times... one was in 11-on-11 on a blitz and he apparently didn't make the read because the QB practically hit him with the ball and he had never looked back.)
On the D side during the scrimmages, most of my attention was on Mario Williams. Initially I felt he was getting eaten up at the line on running plays if he was playing an inside gap, but by the end he reversed my opinion and had some running plays I felt he would have dropped at the line or for a loss and held up well against the run block. When he lined up out on the outside, his speed looked hard for the defense to block and I observed he was held a few times. (Of course, this is the Texans pass blocking we're talking about, so use amount of salt you feel appropriate).
I'm generally sparing of praise for Philip Buchanon, but he had one really nice pass defense on AJ. If he can show as much heart in tackling.... speaking of which, I heard on the news last night that Dunta put on 15 lbs of muscle in the off-season, though he didn't look appreciably bigger to me. He still seemed to have good speed and made a few good plays.
I don't know if I'd say the pass blocking looked appreciably better than during the last regular season, but then the pass rush is a lot better and probably has an advantage in the lack of pads. I wouldn't worry about it yet in any event. Keyed in on watching Eric Winston at RT a few plays and he looked good to me. Also I heard comments from others that Charles Spencer was looking very good, but I hadn't focused on him enough to give my own opinion.
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