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  • 6 months ago
Alex Barth recapped Friday’s game, praising rookie RB TreVeyon Henderson’s big plays, WR Kyle Williams’ ability to get open, and strong defensive efforts from Craig Woodson and Elijah Ponder. He noted rookie OL Will Campbell’s power in the run game but also a miscue with fellow rookie Jared Wilson that led to a sack. Barth discussed Kyle Dugger’s uncertain future, Henderson’s role in a backfield rotation, and QB Drake Maye’s need to limit turnovers. Even with some mistakes, he believes the defense and easy schedule could still mean 10 wins.

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00:00what did you get out of uh friday's game what did you see i guess we can should we do positives
00:08and negatives what what were the positives that you saw out of that game uh so the positives was
00:14was a lot of the young players travion henderson taking back the kickoff and then he had a couple
00:18nice runs as well uh looks as explosive as you would expect kyle williams i know this is going
00:23to sound weird kyle williams had the best game i've ever seen a wide receiver have who didn't
00:28catch a pass um he was constantly getting open and and josh jobs was either just missing him or not
00:33throwing him the ball but i thought he had a really good game uh some of their their defensive players
00:37craig woodson who kind of had a quieter camp after a strong spring i think showed a lot of the things
00:43we saw in the spring you got excited about constantly around the football um the udfa elijah
00:49ponder the pass rusher i thought uh showed up a couple times and then will campbell we can get
00:53to the negatives he did have one play that you know kind of opens your eyes in that regard but
00:57in the run game i he he's he's mean he's nasty he's physical and you can see how he can be a game
01:04changer in that facet of the game yeah young linemen they usually get the run game first right
01:10it's it's the it's takes more of kind of like refinement and technique in pass protection if
01:16i'm not mistaken yeah especially when you look at the way that him and jared wilson another rookie
01:21who's next to him and it's rare you have two rookies playing next to each other on the left side of the
01:25line you look at the play on which they got beat that wasn't he got overpowered that wasn't short
01:30arms that wasn't anything like that it was a twist and him and wilson have only been playing together
01:35for like three weeks and they got to communicate and figure out how they're going to pick that up
01:39instead campbell gets caught up in the middle wilson can't get around to block the outside guy
01:44and it puts a free rusher on drake may who probably should have taken the sack there but that's a
01:49coaching moment and mike brayble even said after the game that was something they were working on
01:53in practice picking up and they were picking up in practice it just has to translate so
01:57that was a moment i think where you just see two young linemen encountering something that they've
02:02encountered a lot before and they're going to have to figure out how they want to handle that
02:06you know watching will campbell closely but you know for the time that he was in there
02:10and i i forgot to ask anybody of substance uh before this morning i asked zo and he hasn't gotten
02:17back to me um but i thought i saw will campbell jump early about five times i thought i it looked
02:24they look like false starts where he was taking a step back like either he is like got the most elite
02:32timing of anyone on that line or that's something that it could present itself as a problem did you see
02:40any of that alex i did so that's a lot of linemen do this in the league now because they know the snap
02:46count right so they now try to jump the snap count the same way a defensive lineman does uh
02:52morgan moses i actually didn't notice if he was doing it or he didn't play uh friday night like in
02:57practice morgan moses does that a ton a lot of veteran linemen do it trent williams does it a lot
03:02trent brown used to do it a lot here chooks a core four tried to do it last year in a preseason game
03:08got called for three false starts in a row so you know there there's a skill that comes with it and
03:13sometimes if you're getting too close officials will call it some people would say one false start
03:19if you're getting that extra quarter second over an entire game is worth the trade-off and there's
03:25some debate on that but it would not surprise me especially considering how close campbell has been
03:30with morgan moses if that's something he's working on and maybe trying to get that right at the snap and
03:36jump the snap in order to get that extra quarter second because it's something you see linemen
03:40around the league do but i did notice that hardy and he was very close with it a few times that might
03:46draw a flag at some point if he'd been in the game longer maybe that would have been the case but i
03:50don't think that's him not knowing the snap count i think that's him trying to do something that we see
03:55a lot of tackles in the league do i wanted to get back alex to what you were talking about the rookie
04:00starting obviously the left side of the offensive line those two guys are pretty much
04:04cement cemented in there unless they get hurt but it was telling to me that travion henderson
04:10left the game as soon as the ones left the game on offense you mentioned kyle williams i saw all the
04:16all the film on replay of him getting open and josh dobbs not getting him the football but in the
04:20secondary all of a sudden there's momentum for woodson to start and dugger running with the twos at
04:25practice yesterday we talked with mike giardi about the possibility of trading him dugger that is and that
04:32looks like more and more possibility it's going to be hard to get somebody to take on the contract
04:37that's kind of my big hold up there but it looks like he's getting passed on the depth chart and
04:42whatever that ends up being it ends up being whether he's just here and he's an expensive backup if they
04:47can find a trade partner if they decide to eat the money and cut him last year was not a good year for
04:52him and he was hurt he was playing through an injury all year and that clearly impacted him
04:56but he still at times hasn't looked like he's all the way back and he missed the whole spring
05:01while he was still rehabbing from that injury so i don't know what it is uh but it might be something
05:06that's still impacting him if this is something that's going to be nagging that's going to be
05:09chronic that he's just never going to fully come back from it it's going to be tough because it impacts
05:15his ability to move and what made him uh you know a good player before he got hurt was his ability to
05:20recognize the play and quickly get to the spot and you lose half a step on that and it changes his game
05:25let but again get let's talk about henderson a little bit and now remandre didn't practice
05:31yesterday it just looks more and more like henderson might be your starting running back for this team
05:36he might i think with josh mcdaniels has always been very uh aware of like how much usage his running
05:45backs are getting and not overusing guys this is something i've talked about the last few years
05:49they've run remandre stevenson in the ground he you know he's top 10 in touches until late in the
05:54year when he gets hurt and you can see it like his play diminishes so they're not going to want to do
05:59that this thing with henderson he took off last year at ohio state because they went out and got
06:05quinch on judkins another really good running back in the portal and his touches decreased but his
06:10overall production increased and that was kind of the knock on him the first three years was
06:14durability and his ability to handle a heavy workload so i don't think you're going to see
06:18like a real bell cow back here i don't think you're going to see a guy play 55 60 percent of the
06:23snaps at that position my guess is high 40s is where henderson will be and uh remandre stevenson
06:30will probably be high 30s low 40s with antonio gibson mixing in as well um it's more about
06:36situations like the starting running backs are relevant remandre stevenson can come out on first
06:41and 10 who's in on third downs who's in on the two minute trail i think that's going to be
06:46trevion henderson he's going to be more maximum impact even if it's not volume uh i think is at
06:53least for this year i think is what's ahead of him all right alex we were talking about drake may
06:58and look if you go out on the street you said how he asked people how was caleb williams last year
07:05everyone's going to go well he sucked and then you look at his numbers and you're like well he didn't
07:08suck like you know he put up pretty decent numbers he had a bad offensive line if you ask people
07:14how about drake may they'd be like he's fantastic he was great drake may now is going to be looked
07:20under like a similar lens of caleb williams in that you know he's going to be expected to win
07:26um how confident are you on him in his second year and you know he didn't play a ton last year
07:32how confident are you that he can make that leap to not only being you know physically gifted and
07:40being able to do all those things but not make mistakes i i mean i feel a lot better than i did
07:46at the beginning of camp because i think he's picked up the offense i don't think that's going to be
07:49the hurdle some people had it for him uh he looks comfortable in that offense he looks in control
07:55but he does need to cut down on the turnovers like that play on friday night right you just got to
07:59take the sack there you're not getting that ball out it's not ideal but that that's the big thing
08:03that's the big unknown i don't think he's ever going to be a guy like you know brady or rogers
08:08in his prime that's throwing four interceptions in a season that's just not his game he's going
08:12to have more turnovers than the average quarterback i i said this on zolak and bertrand last week
08:19i think a good number for him turnovers not interceptions turnovers so including fumbles
08:23can he be under a turnover again i think even if he starts 17 games right he has 15 turnovers
08:29some people might look at that as high i think it is high relative to the average quarterback for him if
08:35the rest of the production's there right he's up close to 30 touchdowns throwing and rushing
08:40you take 15 turnovers so it's never you win 10 games when your quarterback turns it over that many
08:48times with this defense i think they can and this schedule it's part of it too it's a week schedule
08:54but like i think they can like a turnover a game this deep this defense should be forcing a turnover
08:58game right so if you're netting that out zero you should be in good shape now if it's you know
09:04he's getting closer to 20 turnovers then it's going to be a lot harder okay all right well
09:10listen alex uh i talked to you more but i have more jordan hudson news and i can't be like i can't
09:16leave that on hold you got to give the people what they want i get it thank you alex and the people
09:20want you as well and you can get all the alex barth you can handle at 98.5 the sports hub.com he's
09:26one of the great analysts out there for the latest from the sports hub download at 98.5 the sports hub.com
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