When Is Muscle A Bad Thing?
by Jake on Aug 16, 2009 5:30 PM CDT
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I didn't get to watch the first pre-season football game for the Houston Texans against the Kansas City Chiefs until this morning when NFL Network replayed it, and I had intended to write a complete reactionary piece but that won't be necessary. I really think that the points that everyone made in Tim's post soliciting reactions were right on, and to reiterate them would be useless. There is one thing that I saw that has me slightly worried.
When Steve Slaton showed up to training camp over two weeks ago at 224 pounds, I definitely took notice. He played at West Virginia at about 190 pounds, but weighed anywhere from 210 to 215 pounds in his rookie season. At 5'9", 10 pounds of muscle is a lot. I never heard anything derogatory regarding Slaton's explosiveness throughout camp, so I pushed my concerns out of my mind.
Last night Slaton only played for one series, which I'm more than ok with. With all of the injuries already this year, I'd hate to lose someone as important as Stevie Wonder in a game that didn't matter. In that series, however, Slaton looked sluggish to me. He had two runs for loss and then whiffed on Maurice Leggett when he sacked Matt Schaub to end the first series. Blocking wasn't necessarily phenomenal on his two running plays, but it did seem that there were holes that I would normally expect Slaton to produce at least positive yardage with, especially since it was so hard to stop him behind the line of scrimmage last year.
I am fully aware that this post is probably the definition of needless nitpicking, worrying about a running back who gained over 1,500 yards from scrimmage last year because of a total of three plays. Considering how pivotal Slaton was to the offense last year though, I just want to make sure his great play carries over to this season. It is also possibly a moot argument because Steve has stated that the extra 10 pounds will likely be gone by the end of training camp.
Hopefully this is disspelled in the next pre-season game against the Saints on Saturday. I just wanted to bring it up to see if anyone saw the same thing and if so, are you concerned as well? This is one that I'll definitely be glad if I'm completely wrong.
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Don't lose any sleep over it
Let me put my 2 cents in…
Slaton is a finely tuned athlete. Kubiak was the offensive coordinator of one of the most prolific running attacks in NFL history when he was in Denver, which is to say they he could have put his mother in the backfield and she would have gained a thousand. Trust that he will see if Slaton is not passing gas correctly that he will up the refried’s
My confidence is so high that I am willing to bet a $100 that Slaton hits 1,500 yards this season. Any takers? Make the bet and hope that you are wrong
Slaton
When compared against old man Brown, Brown definitely showed a little more giddy-up than did Slaton.
Definitely not worried, though. The blocking was pretty bad while he was in.
Note to self: Insert something witty here.
I saw what you saw
But, three plays are too few to project a season on. I prefer to look at his last five games of last season. Let’s keep watching.
If you had a poll, I would vote “not worried.”
It will happen
And as mentioned by another poster
The O-line was not doing it on the first series. Probably had to knock some rust off. The O-line was looking much better on the second series. They looked REAL good on the second series. Everyone looked good on that second series. The whole offense put it together. Reports from camp have been positive on Slaton and Kubiak is already playing him with the idea of helping him last the entire season.
Maybe it’s too soon on this subject, too, but I have a feeling that Kubiak has done some “coaching” work over the off-season, and I think we will see him step up his game this year, too. I will be keeping my eyes on that through the preseason schedule.
It will happen
I agree with all of this
It was bothering me since I saw it, and I figured I’d throw it out there so I could get it out of my system. There are dozens of things I’m more worried about than Slaton’s chances of success, but besides the injuries it was what stuck with me the most from last night.
You know... for kids.
Not worried
In the slightest. A lot of games last year took Slaton a little while to warm up before he ripped off a big one.
I was thinking the exact same thing.
It always seemed like he would wear down the defense and eventually break away for a 40 or 50 yard touchdown. Nothing to worry about in my opinion.
"I am from one of the top 15 cities in the world. Buffalo, New York." - TrentEdwardsHoF2018
by Artest4Prez on Aug 17, 2009 10:09 AM CDT up reply actions
He did NOT look explosive....
No way around it. Regardless of how the O-Line played…..Stevie did NOT look like he had the explosiveness we became accustomed to last year. Am I worried? Not yet….it’s the first preseason game. However, he needs to hit the holes with that pop from last year.
The sack
I thought sure that Slaton picked up someone else that was blitzing (being that it was the equivalent of an all-out blitz) so he couldn’t pick up the guy that got the sack. breisel was the one I thought that had the only shot to get that guy. Could be wrong, but I would’ve sworn on it before reading this.
And, I’m an idiot asshole, so I’ve got that going for me…. which is nice.
Bacon tastes good... Pork chops taste good.
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