It was incredibly ugly but whatever

Positives
-Generated Turnovers, even if lucky.
-O-line was adequate with a possible upgrade coming
-Selvie as mentioned
-Murray looked good

Negatives
-Romo (Callahan by extension?)
-Secondary (Namely Allen and Claiborne on a couple plays, Carr was pretty good)
-Kiffin

Williams had the 2 drops sure, but at least he was open down the field. Hopefully we can just chalk that up to first game jitters.

Selvie made me once again wonder why we franchised Spencer and had to restructure half the roster.

Though turnovers are mostly luck can definitely tell how they practiced stripping the ball in training camp.

Yeah.

Never felt comfortable at all though. Murray was great. Offense was generally lame though and uninspired. Dez obv was blanketed but was non existent. Austin looked good. Witten was Witten.

Happy to see turnovers. Flukes or not that is a sight for sore eyes.

Interior of oline seemed to be over matched. Pass defense was OK. Need to have Claiborne be healthy.

1-0 though first place.

We at least had a few periods of multi-possession leads, rather than the grit and grind of coming back from multi-possession deficits against scrub ass teams like CLE.

We trailed in every game last year. Amazing stat.

a) Can't mention secondary without talking about Barry Church, who is almost single-handedly destroying David Wilson's career. Forced a fumble, recovered another and went to the end zone with it. Remember Wilson's fumble last year - guess who.

b) Williams had 2 drops and the bad route. Being open is **** if you don't catch the ball. At least when you're covered, the QB knows not to bother and you don't have the risk of a pop up INT. If he's not ready then Harris needs to be the 3.

Now, next up. See if they decide to make a couple of cuts and sign whoever they're going to sign for veteran help. I'm guessing Weems and Rayford, possibly Arkin.

Laurent Robinson is out there and medically cleared, by the way. He's certainly a candidate for a week-to-week deal. A DT maybe, or I could see a corner. I don't know how they feel about depth and they can't take on anybody for much more than veteran minimum. I'd at least work Robinson out though and see what he looks like. If he has any good football left in him and the medical staff are okay then he could help while Williams gets it together.

Whats the word on Clairborne?

Man that Selvie dude can ball.

His shoulder popped out. We'll see how that goes. Romo will be getting x-rays and hopefully Dez's ankle is ok. Looked ok.

Selvie, yeah. Guy was out of control. Want Spencer back ASAP but play like that makes things a little easier. Not bad for $630k so far, see how well it holds up. At this rate he'll get an extension by midseason.

Still puzzled by the D. It's both great and terrible at the same time? How many turnovers did the boys force all last year? We may pass that by week 7 and still give up 30+ per game. Bizarro.

6 TOs by NY one was a muffed punt. We only had 16 last yr

Rafiki that's what the defense is. You've got guys like Allen, Selvie, Hayden out there playing next to guys like Ware, Lee & Hatcher. Two key players out and a number of others starting that aren't sure things. It's going to be hot and cold.

They've got the kind of personnel that COULD come together as an excellent defense. Allen and Scandrick are really the only ones experienced enough to write off as JAGs, the rest all have good upside for the season. Whether they live up to it or not we'll have to wait and see.

It's just Game 1 and there's a new defense just installed so things are going to take a little bit to settle down in even the best possible case. Right now they're 1-0 at the expense of a division rival and I'm perfectly content with that for this week. Now let's see if these guys are all healthy and if Waters and Spencer can play next week at KC.

Is Ratliff supposed to play at all this year?

He's on the PuP list, meaning he can't play for 6 games. After that they get 3 weeks to have him practice. Once (if) he does, they have three weeks from the start of him practicing to put him on the 53. If not, he's done for the year.

Don't be surprised if he doesn't play until Week 9 or after the bye though. Remember he hasn't practiced this scheme.

Dez really is cursed

At least it wasn't serious

61 of 61 players (including practice squad) participated in practice yesterday. Not sure I've ever seen that before. Although of course some players are a little banged up and wearing braces and whatnot. But 100% were out there.

Excludes only Ratliff but he's not presently on the active roster.

Already talk of Williams being crap and losing 3rd receiver job. Lol this draft.

Well Harris is good and has chemistry with Romo I don't get why they don't like him outside of his size.

I mean rookie WR though is a tough position and he showed some flashes. Can't make dumb mistakes or drop passes though.

Not sure how confident they are in Harris's ability to get open downfield, every time he came in against NYG they would just throw him those little screens/dump-offs.

He's probably just not ready yet. 2 receptions all preseason, every coach saying all camp about how far he has to go. His QB missed OTAs. He got the #3 job by default because he was a 2nd-day pick, which is stupid. Harris may nor may not be a viable #3 but he has shown a lot more.

They needed to draft an outside WR. Here they found one, a somewhat bigger guy with credible blocking skills. But they say he ran like 4 routes at Baylor, has never seen press, needs to work on adjustments...remember now he's lining up on the outside against NFL cornerbacks, not as a slot guy against some linebacker or safety. That's pretty tough to do from Day 1, more so when you're not some elite physical specimen freak athlete.

This might make you feel a little better. Trivia stats on all receivers drafted in the 3rd-round between 1993-2012, 84 players in all, as far as their rookie season:

-Only 17% reached 30 receptions, while 52% didn't get to the double digits
-Only 6% scored 5 or more TDs, while 57% failed to score at all
-Only 7% break 600 receiving yards, while 63% don't break 200
-None were selected to the Pro Bowl (aside from one, but as a returner)
-None hit double-digit TDs, broke 900 yards, 55 receptions, or started 75% of games

That's 20 years worth of 3rd round receivers. This includes a number of players with multiple 1,000-yard seasons and Pro Bowl selections in their future, namely:

Terrell Owens
Hines Ward
Steve Smith
Mike Wallace
Laveranues Coles
Darrell Jackson
Antonio Freeman
Marty Booker

And that's not even scratching all the players with maybe 1x 1k season, or solid career #3s putting up 650 yards and 6 TDs a season, or younger players just getting started.

So I mean with Terrance Williams or any receiver taken in that round, you have to be patient and realistic. Statistically he's more likely than not to be a bust. History says he has less than 50/50 chance to hit 1,000 yards or start 16 games over his entire NFL career. But even if he turns out to be a good one it's probably not going to happen this year.

Spencer might play?

Yeah, still have no problems with Terrence Williams.

Thought Frederick and Escobar were terrible picks. Looks like I may have been wrong on Frederick though time will tell. Still a 1st round center so the bar is rather high.

Escobar worries me a little WRT draft value. But again, a reliable receiving TE is nothing to sneeze at whether he's slow and sucks at blocking or not. The good thing about all of the picks outside of Frederick is that they can have a year to develop in a secondary or reserve role. And if I was going to knock Escobar then I'd have to point out Holloman exceeding expectations.

Now is the time to be looking at the gains from the 2011 draft. Tyron, Carter & Murray all look like hits and Harris is at least somewhat useful. They also found both their punter and kicker as undrafteds so I'd call it a pretty good class.

2012 has some potential too. Too many guys hurt but then you can't exactly scratch Crawford, MJ, Bass off forever. You've still got Claiborne and Hanna out there and don't forget Leary is now a starting guard, Dunbar the #2 back, and Beasley is still on the roster. There's still time, and all three of the players on IR will be more than ready by OTAs next year so they will (hopefully) recover completely. All three showed something before going down and all are still under contract for another 2 seasons.

Far too early to give up on these new picks. There's not a one of them that doesn't have the potential to develop into a starting role, though Webb to me looks like a career nickel corner (that's okay though, you need one). Even Jeff Heath is kind of an interesting rookie at a somewhat neglected position. And, unlike previous classes, they're all healthy so far.

...But Escobar did seem like an oddball pick to me, still does. Hanna was doing well, TEs are cheap, this one's two best attributes are size and great hands. Lots of potential value in that but I'd rather have drafted one lower or found a FA.

Their board was about totally dried up at that point though, everybody on their list otherwise was gone. There was Blidi Wreh-Wilson at corner, two QBs, Margus Hunt at DE, plus Eddie Lacy at RB. That's all that was left of who they had on their 1st and 2nd round board, besides the guys they took in Frederick, Williams, Escobar. No linemen or safeties- - Hunt by the way is super-raw and inactive so far, not to mention 26 years old. The QBs lasted until the 4th round.