I am attending practice tomorrow morning and I'll fold the two practices into pieces for Tuesday, Wednesday and maybe Thursday. It's a bit late, but here's a quickie look at the day's events.
It rained for much of practice and the offense struggled. I focused on the offense, specifically Seattle's wide receivers, and even more specifically Deon Butler. I'll hold off on writing anything definitive about Butler, but he had a down day today and especially struggled with missed passes and drops. Again, especially for a wide receiver, another day of viewing is in order. Jordan Kent has already established himself as a training camp superstar, but not everyone can own the VMAC like Jordan.
The highlight of the day for me was John Carlson. Carlson is remarkable. His route running is ever perfect and however he times out on a track, he looks remarkably fast. He doesn't blow by defenders, but his routes are smooth and his cuts without wasted motion and that allows him to get to his spot in a hurry. His hands are and have always been superb. Among other tight ends, Cameron Morrah looks bulky, agile and slow. John Owens is huge and slow - not a receiving tight end by any stretch. Joe Newton is growing into his own. And poor John Tereshinksi was having troubling doing anything. He lost his feet on a post pattern, dropped a pass and then got clobbered in pass protect drills.
Carlson owned pass protect drills to the delight of fans. He dominated every matchup, locking on and locking down defenders with good timing, hand placement, shadowing and strength. Four up, four down without a man getting by him or even close. This was a weak spot for Carlson as a rookie, but he's showing dramatic improvement.
Aaron Curry covered Carlson on a one-on-one drill towards the conclusion of practice. Curry stayed close with a well timed backpedal, was shoulder-to-shoulder into Carlson's break, and dropped like garbage the second Carlson broke towards the left sideline. No knock on Curry, because no one knew where that route was going but Carlson and the quarterback. After a special rookie season, kid might be dashing towards superstardom in the 2009 season.