The first preseason game is always exciting, as it is a return to football…even though you know going in that it will probably be a sloppy game, and most of the players that get playing time will be seeing most of the time on the field are (likely) getting most of the NFL playing time that they’ll ever receive.
The players I was excited to watch in some capacity were all rookies: Malcolm Mitchell, Kamu Grugier-Hill, and Devin Lucien.
The first quarter was rather uninspiring for the remaining three, as the only time any of them saw on the field was Kamu Grugier-Hill getting some special teams reps. If Grugier-Hill continues to play early on special teams, he has a good shot of making the roster, regardless of other factors.
Malcolm Mitchell saw the field starting about 3 minutes into the second quarter, and spent a solid 10 minutes absolutely shining on screen. The first pass in his direction was complete, with him running a comeback. Two plays later, he was hit downfield in a soft spot against Cover 2. On the next drive, Mitchell showed great balance, agility, and flexbility on a quick hitch, which after securing the ball he juked around a defender and picked up 14 yards.
Two plays later, he caught another pass for 8 yards……and on the way to the ground, dislocated his elbow.
Initial reports are saying that it should be about a 4 week recovery time. This is unfortunate to his development, but it looked much worse than that in real time and on replays, so hopefully he can be back in time to further his rapport with Jimmy Garoppolo for the regular season.
As for general analysis of his performance, he spent most of the time lined up split out left, but also played closer to the line on both the left and right on some running plays…essentially, the Brandon Lafell role from the past two seasons.
If he has the ability to be as evasive as he looked, he can be deadly in this offense when everything is at full strength. New Orleans was able to play some pretty straight-forward coverage while Mitchell was on the field, because there was nobody else worth heavily focusing on. In a situation where he is on the field with Gronk, Martellus Bennett, Julian Edelman all soaking up some serious coverage through desperate game-planning, he’ll likely be isolated into strictly one on one matchups instead of man corners with two deep safeties.
In that case, his ability to dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge will have the potential to turn quick hitches and slants into explosive 30+ yard plays.
Kamu Grugier-Hill started seeing the field a lot around the same point in the game, and you could see that the coaching staff held him in high regard. Though there were other players that have been in the system longer that were on the field, he had the green dot on his helmet, indicating that he had the radio in his helmet and therefore was communicating plays to the defense.
He played both middle and weakside linebacker, and also was calling the plays. He always found himself near the ball, and made some solid plays while in man coverage. His zone awareness wasn’t nearly as strong, with his reads resulting in at least two open receivers by my count.
Late in the game while in zone, he collided with V’Angelo Bentley which resulted in an open receiver on a crossing route. I can’t quite tell who was wrong as that one, so it may have been Bentley running too deep or Grugier-Hill playing too shallow. I’m sure through a few more weeks of preseason and study, that will get cleared up and his zone coverage will improve.
Hopefully, the basement for Grugier-Hill is to be the level of another hyphenated past Patriots, Tully Banta-Cain, who was a core special teamer and spelled Willie McGinest on occasion and late in blowouts. I’m also hoping that he plays well enough to earn a nickname, because Grugier-Hill has the least amount of keyboard flow to any name I’ve ever typed.
Devin Lucien didn’t see the field until 5 minutes were left in the fourth quarter, the only ball his way thrown was overthrown out of bounds in the endzone by Jacoby Brissett. He was split out left on ever play that I observed, mostly looking to run block down field. Not particularly exciting, but perhaps he’ll get more of a chance to show what he’s got with Mitchell out and if Edelman, Danny Amendola, and Chris Hogan don’t see much preseason action.
Bring on week 2!
[…] Early in this season, we saw Malcolm Mitchell look like he and Jimmy Garoppolo were on the same page, with Mitchell being targeted 7 times in 6 quarters, with 3 catches. Mitchell had two more targets from Jacoby Brissett in week 3, with one catch for 27 yards. He showed flashes of potential in his first preseason game before dislocating his elbow. […]