Everyone is saying roughly the same things.
1.) I think the defense has the potential to be its most potent it has ever been in the Manning Era. Right off the get go, Antoine Bethea came flying in, blasting Niners’ RB Michael Robinson and separating him from the ball. This was followed by a quick three-and-out on the Niners’ next possession and ended with a pick on the 1st units’ last drive before they were pulled out. The blitzes looked more natural in this game as holes opened up for blitzers to come free with the coverage behind them being stellar. Pressure seemed to be coming from all angles – straight up the middle from our DT’s like Fili Moala and Eric Foster, from blitzers like Melvin Bullit and Pat Angerer, and from the DE’s like John Chick and Robert Mathis. The performance was truly impressive, to say the least. I can only imagine how much better this unit will be with Bob Sanders and Dwight Freeney inserted back into the lineup.
Second team offensive line: I know many people would rather blame Painter, but the poor performance of Brandstater solidifies the second team offensive line as a dreadful part of the game. This unit lost all cohesion after snaps, drew 3 penalties, barely held a pocket for 2 to 3 seconds, and simply looked awful. While they do not get all the blame for bad performances by Painter, Brandstater, Brown and Hart, they sure didn’t help matters at all.
-Jerraud Powers was spec-tac-u-lar! If he can stay healthy, he’ll quickly start being mentioned as one of the better CBs in the league. He was reading and reacting quickly, making nice hits, and his interception return was very nice, indeed. I think he would have had a real chance to score if someone didn’t tweet to him about 30 yards into the run that it was still pre-season.
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