Disorganized thoughts

I’m still blurry eyed from getting up at 5 am to watch Argentina win (Messi is utterly amazing. If you don’t like watching Argentine Seleccion play soccer, you’ll never like soccer and shouldn’t try) in Soccer and lose at the buzzer in basketball. Here’s what I took away from last night’s game.

• Sorgi should thank his Maker that Quinn Gray threw that last horrible pick. Playing with an elite group of offensive talent, in a system he has worked in for several years now, Jim Sorgi proves almost weekly that he is NOT an NFL caliber QB. If the Colts cut him, would anyone else sign him? I doubt it. He’s not out of a job yet, but he seriously needs to upgrade his performance. He simply can’t process the reads fast enough and/or doesn’t have enough confidence in his arm strength to make tough throws. I fully recognize that there is an apples to oranges component to preseason QB evaluation. Still, it can’t be denied that both Grey and Lorenzen seem to spark and move the offense, while Sorgi looked lost.
• Is there anyone left who thinks Mike Hart doesn’t make this team? FO did a piece on obscure RBs who post a huge YPC in the preseason. Mike Hart now has 73 Yards on just 6 carries in two games. I’m not saying he’s a Hall of Famer, but it looks like this kid belongs in the big show. It will be interesting to see if a. he gets to the 25 carry threshold over the next three weeks (he needs around 6 carries a game to do it), and b. he keeps that YPC over the magic number of 3.94. I think the odds of both occurring are good.
• Kenton Keith dropped a pass! I know there has been an undercurrent that questions the anti-Keith sentiment on Footballoutsiders because he had such a sick success rate last year, but anyone who watches this team cringes whenever he goes out into a pattern.
• TJ Rushing looks faster. He had several nice returns and seems to have found a new gear.
• It is hard not to notice Tim Jennings improving. Several have blogged that observation from camp, and it showed up. I know that FO gave him a very high success rate last year, but honestly I question their game charters. I don’t know if they realized that Jennings wasn’t the nickleback. He came in in nickle situations, but they would move Jackson inside. In almost every major passing situation, it seemed that Jennings was targeted by the opposing team. All that aside, he looks like he’s greatly improved.
• Tony Dungy is a great coach. On 4th and 2 from the 10 in the fourth quarter, he decided it was more valuable to see Gray work than kick what would have been the game winning field goal. Gray delivered the ball late to Tamme, and it was picked, but how great is it to a. have a coach who is smart enough to not care about winning preseason games and b. have a franchise that has had enough success that it doesn’t need ‘moral victories’ in the form of preseason wins. This team will likely go 1-4 (at best) in the preseason, and everyone with a brain should feel just fine about that.
• It’s absolutely impossible to evaluate our defense right now. There are just too many players playing now who won’t be in four weeks.
• Tamme looks like a player. Seriously, will anyone be able to defend this offense once 18 comes back? The O-line needs to pull it’s act together (it’s a crazy young group really), because massive pressure on the QB is the only thing that could possibly stop this unit.
• How great was it to see 88 on the field again?
• All in all, it was fun to just watch football again. I taped the HoF game and will watch it sometime this week.
• Finally, what’s with this quote from the Star critique of the Luke (and yes, it’s the Luke. And pray to God it doesn’t become the LOSer Dome): Holding up the arched roof trusses, the steel “superframes” in all four corners are both beautifully complex and intimate — “you can nuzzle right up to the beefy I-beams as you walk through the top concourses,” Cheek says.

Um, I don’t know about you guys…but there is no way in hell that I’m nuzzling any
beefy I-beams.

Links: Coldhardfootballfacts posts a list which shows exactly how stupid it is to judge a QB by winning %. Rex Grossman and Kyle Orton both make the top 7. Wins are the product of teams, not quarterbacks.

***On a personal note, I would appreciate your prayers for Demond. Apparently, he didn’t have the flu. He was admitted to the hospital late last night with appendicitis. His appendix did rupture this morning as they didn’t get him into surgery in time, and he has just come out of the OR. The doctors say that everything went very well, but it’s obviously a difficult situation. His wife is 38 weeks pregnant.

Thanks.

UPDATE: I spoke to him this afternoon, and it seems that Demond is fine and hoping to get released today.