Practice 4: Passing success

Still having picture issues - not sure what the problem is. Sorry!

Not too many notes from practice today, and there's some mixed news on the injury front.

The good news: Devon "Y'lou" Brown practiced after sitting out yesterday and made some very good catches in Skelly. The offense continued to have the defense's number, making them look particularly bad in the red zone.

The bad news: Chip Brinkman did not practice and appears to have a thigh injury.

Even though the offense outperformed the defense, the defense did have one big highlight. Junior walk-on linebacker Lee Malchow, who usually gets most of his playing time on special teams, hit receiver D.J. Boldin hard enough to knock his helmet off. It was a huge hit and really fired up the defense.

Even though he took that big hit, Boldin continues to have a great preseason, catching everything in sight. He may not be the next Kenny Moore, but he's showing a readiness to step up and contribute in a big way.

Until today I've felt like it's been too early to really start analyzing things much, but I think we're getting to the point of being able to put some pieces together.

One thing I've noticed consistenly is that the offense has had a lot of success making headway against the defense in passing drills. This is great to see from the wideouts, who all seem like they're ready to step up and get the job done this year. I mentioned Boldin specifically before, but I think the entire passing game is going to be successful.

The other suprising thing about the offense's success is that usually the defense is well ahead of the offense at this point in the preseason. Considering how talented this defense is, the fact that the offense can get things done is very encouraging. I also don't see this as any indication of problems on defense, just a sign that both sides of the ball are very talented.

All of this analysis is based mostly on drills that don't involve the running game very much, so clearly we'll learn a lot more once we start seeing full pads and 11 on 11 scrimmaging, but these have to be good signs for an offense that has some question marks. If the offensive line is able to give Riley some time, I think we'll see some great things from the passing game this year.

Tomorrow the team should be practicing in full pads, which means we may start getting a better read on the run game and offensive line. Hopefully we'll see good things there as well.