SB Nation - Evan Oglesby

Ravens Dominate Again: Finish Pre-Season 4-0

Bruce Raffel — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 14:14:41 -0000

3 months ago: Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh greets quarterback John Beck (12) as he comes back to the sideline after a first half touchdown against the Atlanta Falcons during their exhibition NFL football game Thursday, Sept. 3, 2009, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Amis)

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The Baltimore Ravens completed their 2009 exhibition season 4-0, by dominating the Atlanta Falcons with their reserves most of the game 20-3. Last time the Ravens went undefeated in pre-season was before the 2000 Super Bowl season.

To many of the fans, this was an incredibly meaningless and boring game. However, to the knowledgable fan, this was as important a game as there was for the team as a whole. While most of the starters were on the sidelines, the reserves were fighting for their NFL careers, hoping to make that one last impression that would convince the team's Front Office that they deserve a spot on the Ravens roster.

The Ravens must cut 22 of their 75 players to get down to the NFL maximum of 53 players by tomorrow afternoon. Almost one-third of this roster will be looking for either new teams or new jobs by late Saturday. Can you imagine the stress and fear going through some of the players on the so-called "bubble?" One moment, they are on the world's stage, being treated like royalty with a big salary, great benefits and teammates and the next moment they are returning to the factories and local supermarkets in their hometowns looking for a full time job that many of them are not even qualified to do.

This is the toughest time of the year for the Front Office personnel. Telling a player that his dream job is being ripped from his heart has to be one depressing deed to complete, much less 22 times in one afternoon. I feel for Head Coach John Harbugh and his staff on the tough decisions, much less the notification of the unlucky players. On the other hand, there will be a few surprises so the fear and disappointment of one player could be muted by the joy and aspirations of another who gets told he did indeed make the squad.

However, that's all happening tomorrow. Today is a time to exalt the efforts that the team made in their victory over the Atlanta Falcons. Our second team offense moved down the field and scored on its first possession against the Falcons' first team defense. Our deeper reserves bullied and pushed the Falcons' reserves all over the field and while it was not exactly pretty nor efficient at times, the final score showed the complete domination on both sides of the ball.

Third string QB John Beck played his most minutes and best of the pre-season, with the time to get into a rhythm, hitting on 16 of 28 passes for 232 yards, two TD's and no interceptions, with a 108.0 QB rating. The running backs did their part and there is going to be a tough decision as it appears that only one out of Jalen Parmale, Cedric Peerman and FB Jason Cook is going to make the squad.

At wide receiver, Justin Harper continues to frustrate both the team and himself, dropping two long balls after getting open on deep routes. At the same time, Eron Riley caught the passes thrown in his direction, a long ball plus a TD reception, but even that might not be enough to secure a spot for him. Little guys Jayson Foster and Yamon Figurs didn't do anything to help their causes either.

At linebacker, there are so many decisions to make and to me theyare all easy as the entire group deserves to stay on the team. That won't happen and while Jameel McClain and Tavares Gooden are locks, Antwan Barnes, Prescott Burgess, Danell Ellerbe, Jason Phillips and William VanDeSteeg are probably fighting for just two remaining spots between them. Since we didn't see the rookie Ellerbe in the game, I am hoping the team retains their rights to him by placing him on Injured Reserve to secure him for next year.

The defensive backs did relatively nothing to change the coaches opinions about their roles on the team. Evan Oglesby had a nice hit but still figures to be a long shot, and Frank Walker was,..well Frank Walker. Two penalties on one play epitomizes his style of play, which is grab and hold and hope the refs don't flag him, which they usually do. For wahtever reason, the team seems to like him but he has done nothing to prove his value to the fans this pre-season.

Once again, another great win despite the meaningless part of pre-season being wins and losses. The coaches now have to seclude themselves in the headquarters to make their final decisions by tomorrow afternoon. Post your thoughts here on what you saw and what you think will happen tomorrow when roster cuts are announced.

Until then, bring on the Kansas City Chiefs!

Ravens' Secondary: Who Stays, Who Goes?

Bruce Raffel — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:54:11 -0000

The Baltimore Ravens will have to make a cut or two today to get down to the NFL maximum of 75 players. On Saturday, they will have to declare their 53 man roster by making a bunch of painful decisions. Today, we will be looking at the team's secondary, and predicting what the team will do with their cornerbacks and safeties.

With the recent announcement that veteran cornerback Samari Rolle will begin the season on the Physically Unable to Perform (PUP) List, it makes it a bit easier to look at the list and determine who will stay and who will be let go. Rolle's status on the Pup List is not counted against our roster total, so that actually allows the team to keep another player that might have either been on the bubble or cut had Rolle been ready to go from opening day.

Last year's opening day roster included 10 defensive backs, although there are always a player or two that is placed on the Inactive List for that week's games. Looking at the current Ravens roster of defensive backs, the list includes the following no-brainers who should be starting on September 13th against the Kansas City Chiefs at M&T Bank Stadium:

Ed Reed, Dawan Landry, Fabian Washington, Domonique Foxworth

Adding in those players who figure to be in the nickel, dime and dollar packages, that should ensure the safety of:

Chris Carr, Lardarius Webb, Frank Walker, Haruki Nakamura, Tom Zbikowski

While many Ravens fans seem to think that the often penalized Walker should be more on the bubble than safe, the Ravens still like his physical play and he figures to get a lot of playing time, espeically during the time that Samari Rolle is unavaillable.

That puts nine players in the secondary on the team's roster of 53. If they decide to keep at least one more player, then the choice is whittled down to one of three remaining defensive backs:

Derrick Martin, Evan Oglesby, K.J. Gerard

Of those three, Martin looks to be the choice, as he is more versatile than the others and has been playing mostly at safety this summer. Oglesby has been burned on a regular basis this pre-season and is probably the first of this list to be cut. However, while Gerard intrigued the coaches with his ability to be around the ball in OTA's earlier this spring, he has not made the impact they were hoping for since Training Camp and exhibition games have begun.

We will see the first round of cuts completed by later today, and while the secondary is a major interest to the team, I still doubt the team will make any cuts today in this area, waiting to see how the guys on the bubble perform in Thursday's final exhibition game before making their final decisions by 5 p.m. on Saturday, September 5th.

Poll

If the Ravens have to cut two of the three following defensive backs, who will be safe?

Derrick Martin

311 votes

Evan Oglesby

139 votes

K.J. Gerard

111 votes

561 votes | Poll has closed

Cowboys Camp, Day Nine: Zebra Time

Rafael Vela — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 23:15:04 -0000

More photos » by Eric Gay - AP

Mat McBriar and his special teams mates have worked hard this week. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

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The refs arrived today. Big deal, you may be thinking.

Yes, it is a big deal. The human barcodes can tell us a lot about the state of the team. Last summer, everybody was ooohing and aaahing over the alleged corner depth. Pacman Jones was catching six punts on "Hard Knocks" and a lot of people were wondering how a talent like Evan Oglesby could be retained.

Then, the refs arrived -- and the flags started to fly. The cornerbacks drew a rain of yellow laundry in the refs first couple of days. I overheard one team official grouse that the corners were doing way too much grabbing and holding, suggesting that the "great" early corner play was due to a little bending of the interference rules.

And we all know how the secondary's season went...

We'll have to wait another day to see if the refs find similar errors among this year's secondary group. Today's session, held in full pads, resumed the week-long attention to kickoff returns and worked on the team's power offense, in the red zone and in goal line situations.

For what it's worth, I saw very, very few flags today. In fact, I don't recall any in the 11-on-11 scrimmages, which is a good sign, though I'm waiting for the 11-on-11 passing drills before I officially declare an optimism alert (what color would that be on the charts?) concerning penalties.

The Cowboys devoted more time to kickoff returns, as they did the past two sessions and perhaps more this week. Today, the individual drills focused on blocking in space and on reacting and thinking on your feet.

The initial drills split into two groups. On the left half of the field, John Garrett and Reggie Herring oversaw two "bull rings." In each, pairs of players would start at one end of a zoned off oval. One was designated a cover guy, the other a return man. When the coach blew the whistle, the return player would run fifteen yards to the opposite end of the oval, turn around and then shadow the coverage player, who tried to shake, slalom and out maneuver his opponent. The drill approximates the type of blocks the front five or six players will have to make on kick returns.

On the opposite end of the field, Joe DeCamillis worked with the back five -- the wedge pair, the two deep outside return blockers and the single deep setback. For the first time, Nick Folk worked with this group, as the initial task was handling squib kicks.

The wedge men worked first. The theme of DeCamillis' exercises is understanding where you are in space, where you are in the formation and reacting accordingly. For instance:

-- on the first squib kick, Cory Proctor bounced the ball into the air, dropped it when it came down, got it under control, and then dropped and covered the ball.

-- on the second kick, Pat McQuistan fielded the bouncing ball cleanly on his own 30. Since he would have at least 25 yards or so of clear space were this a live game situation, McQuistan did the smart thing in this situation: he locked the ball to his belly with both hands and then lumbered straight upfield until he met some resistance.

-- deeper kicks to either up returner, fielded at the fifteen or so, saw the wedge guys find the man and then run interference for him. The deep returner would lurk behind the up-man, to cover in case he dropped the ball or it skipped past him. Once the deep returner saw the ball was handled cleanly, he sprinted past to become a third blocker just wide of the wedge.

As I mentioned yesterday, the kick return teams will have to be more reactive, and take their kicks to the side of the field where the ball is kicked. Today, I saw plenty of evidence that the team is getting comfortable with DeCamillis' new tactics.

The team then practiced a number of different types of squibs. They dealt with kicks that came from near midfield, after a penalty, and from the normal spot on the 30. DeCamillis had Folk kick several balls from midfield, to get the coverage unit on his return guys faster and force them to react more quickly. There were no major problems.

The return teams then worked on two new return formations, difference from the one I diagrammed yesterday. They also worked on some return trickery.

It is clear to me that DeCamillis sees the new two-man rules as an opportunity to open up the kick return game and is going to look for big returns as often as possible this year. It's also clear that this year's team is paying much more attention to repetition than last year's team did. The '08 Cowboys had just as many coaches working on the drills and just as much personalized attention as this year's team. What I didn't see was a drill carried out as thoroughly, over so many sessions as this team has. We won't know if this more repetitive approach will bear fruit for a while, but right now, it offers some reason for optimism.

The coaches made use of the refs by holding a coffin corner drill. All the return players went to the right near corner, just in front of the goal line, and drilled in stopping rolling punts before they reached the end zone. In each case, the player went to the five, put one foot on the sideline, anchored it there, and attempted to reach onto the field and snatch a rolling kick before it got past him. The refs would make the ball where it went out, to give the players an idea of how the call would be made in a real game.

The drill suggests that Mat McBriar won't be working on punting to the five or ten in the middle of the field, but will go for a lot more "coffin corners" in this campaign.

Later, the team practiced half a dozen field goal attempts with the first and second units. It was impossible to guage kick accuracy because Nick Folk and David Buehler were kicking to the left end, where the goal post has been removed. A mini upright was rolled into place to give them a target, but I think the emphasis was on blocking the attempts properly.

I watched both starter L.P. Ladouceur and backup Matt Stewart, who snapped for the second team. Both looked accurate in their warmups, though L.P. was a perfect 3-for-3 on his kick snaps. Stewart's last snap was a bit low, though the holder fielded it easily and the kick went off without a problem.

I can't say off this one drill if Stewart can push Ladouceur for the job. I'll have to see how they snap on punts, since that's the real tough job.

Day 9 Install

The offense and defense then broke up into groups. The offense worked on sets from a two-tight end, two-back, one wideout formation. Historically, the Cowboys have used this in three situations: when they're trying to escape from inside their own 20, when they're inside an opponent's 25, or in the late stages of a game, when they have a lead and are trying to grind down the clock.

The team ran several variants of the set -- two TEs, one on each side of the line, with a flanker and an offset I; two TEs on one side of the formation and an offset I, either set to the weakside or overloaded on the strong side, and a fullhouse "Packers" formation, with three backfield players in a diamond set. (I call this Packers because I first saw it used extensively by former G.B. coach Mike Sherman, back when Ahman Green was his tailback.)

SE LT LG C RG RT TE

TE FB

Dallas called mostly runs and some passes from this package. After running through their daily red zone list, the offense moved the ball to the three yard line and worked on this set and a three TE set in goal line settings.

On the opposite end of the field, the defense was working on goal line defenses, getting into the proper gaps in a goal line set, recognizing passes and reacting to them.

The two units then met at the 25 and the offensive and defensive sets were practiced 11-on-11. I won't make too much out of individual plays, because there was a lot of mixing and matching going on. On one play, the first offense would run against the 2nd defense, then they might run a play against the 3rd unit. Then, they would leave and the 2nd offense would rotate in to face the 1st defense and so on. I will add these observations:

-- The first team offensive line got a steady push, regardless of which defensive unit it faced. Again, I won't make too much of this until they face other teams, but given the line's troubles with short yardage runs the past few years, it's better to see them doing well than poorly in these drills.

-- Jason Garrett's plays, mixing overloads with balance, got the defense off balance several times. I saw several pass plays where the main action completely bamboozled the coverage and left backs wide open on checkdowns.

-- Bradie James looks better in pass coverage. This has never been Bradie's strong point, so it is reassuring to see him on top of backs whenever passes are delivered in his direction.

-- Nothing has fooled, and nobody has beaten Demarcus Ware thus far. The offense has run plays away from him. It has run misdirections to get him to bite. Forget it. Demarcus sees all and thus far, he's snuffed all.

-- Alan Ball made some plays in coverage. The offense tried lulling the defense to sleep, callng five consecutive running plays. When it ran a bootleg on the sixth, Ball closed quickly from the free safety spot to break up the pass. He also had a breakup in the goal line packages. He's looking fast and steady as Ken Hamlin's backup.

Notes

-- The team needs another nose tackle, reason 18: backup Tim Anderson limped off the field late in the session. I don't know the extent of his leg injury, but for a team that's already questionable at the backup NT spot, this isn't good news.

-- Don't chase shiny things: It always amuses me that so many fans stand up and cheer when Tony Romo enters the arena. They'll cheer anything he does. Today, he left through a corner exit, presumably to visit the little boys room. He got a rousing cheer when he returned.

-- Strange moment of the day: while the offensive and defensive units were running a goal line drill, the receivers were gathered as a group near midfield. They knelt in a circle, around position coach Ray Sherman. While Sherman addressed them, Patrick Crayton seemed to respond to his sermon by pointing to some of his colleagues. At one point, Crayton turned to Roy Williams, who was right next to him and pinged the top of Roy's head with his index finger. A few seconds later, he turned and pinged Roy again...

and again....

and again...

I was too far up the stands to see if any words accompanied the pings, but they seemed good-natured. After the sixth or so ping, Williams slowly stood up, sauntered to the opposite end of the circle and knelt down again, where he could be ping free.

Dallas Cowboys release Evan Oglesby

Dave Halprin — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 00:01:23 -0000

With Keith Davis signing tomorrow, the Cowboys had to dump a player. Evan Oglesby was the unfortunate Cowboy.

[Keith] Davis will officially sign his contract with Dallas before Wednesday's practice, making this his third stint with the club in a five-year span. The club made room on its 53-man roster by releasing cornerback Evan Oglesby, who had one of the best training camps of any player.

OK, I’ve been saying it for a while now, if they keep Alan Ball over Evan Oglesby, they must believe that Ball has a ton of special teams potential yet unrealized. Because no observer of training camp or the preseason could plausibly state that Ball outplayed Oglesby. Quite the contrary, Ball was a disaster as a CB with more penalties and mistakes than plays made. Oglesby at least was an occasional playmaker. But with the 6^th CB, special teams often wins. And of course, there’s the real issue:

There's also the matter of money. Oglesby, a restricted free agent after this season, would have cost the Cowboys more than a million bucks to keep him next season. That's more than Ball will cost the next two seasons combined ($370,000 this season, $460,000 in '09).

I guess I should have followed the old maxim: Follow the money.

Hat tip to Barrett14 for posting the news in this FanPost.

[UPDATE] To be clear, I don't think they kept Ball over Ogelsby just because of money. I think they looked at two guys who were at the bottom of the roster and weighed the pros and cons. Oglesby is the better corner now but may not get any reps if the rest of the corners stayed healthy. Ball is not ready to play corner, but they think he can contribute on special teams. Then they looked at the contracts and decided that Ball being signed for the next couple of years at bottom rates vs. Oglesby being up for renewal next year as another reason to stick with Ball. Still, I would have rather kept Erik Walden than either of them.

This story still makes no sense to me.

Dallas Cowboys 53-man roster in flux

Dave Halprin — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 17:02:19 -0000

The Dallas Cowboys have about three or four days to get this all straightened out. What they presented as their 53-man roster and practice squad will surely change this week, and possibly next week, the question is how much.

We know that Keith Davis is going to be signed, possibly on Tuesday or Wednesday. That means one person is gone from the 53-man roster. Dallas is carrying one extra defensive back and one extra offensive lineman, so you would guess one of the bottom two corners, Alan Ball or Evan Oglesby, would get the boot. I don’t think they’d carry 12 defensive backs.

But there is another piece of the puzzle that could change who Davis replaces. Isaiah Stanback is going to attempt to practice in a shoulder harness. His success or failure will determine his future, which could go from playing in the season opener to landing on IR. The Cowboys will watch him at practice and make a determination on his season. If he can play on Sunday, Danny Amendola and Mike Jefferson will likely remain on the practice squad.

For the immediate week, it doesn’t look like the Cowboys are going to add a veteran WR, instead they will depend on either Stanback’s health or call up Amendola or Jefferson. Unless they are working on a trade, it appears they will go in-house for week one. After week one, they can look at outside free-agent options.

Also in the mix for the following week is a veteran QB coming on board to be the #3. Everybody says that it’s Brooks Bollinger and not Chris Simms. Dallas put Richard Bartel on the practice quad this morning, but his future is very unsure.

So let me try and sum it up:

Keith Davis is going to take a 53-man roster spot.
If Isaiah Stanback is healthy enough to play, Davis would displace either Ball or Oglesby, or possibly even James Marten.
If Stanback goes to IR, then Davis could take his spot.
But Stanback’s absence would most likely require a call-up of Mike Jefferson or Danny Amendola, meaning Ball, Oglesby or Marten will have to go.
Next week, barring a trade this week, the Cowboys could look at adding a WR, depending on health issues.
Next week, they might bring in a #3 QB and Brooks Bollinger appears to be the leader in the clubhouse.

Tank Johnson has changed his number to 95 and Montrae Holland will wear #64. The question is what number will Keith Davis wear? Tashard Choice has his old #29.

As noted above, Richard Bartel was added to the practice squad Monday morning.

The DMN says we’ve expressed interest in old friend Jamaica Rector but not Joe Horn or Freddie Mitchell. Freddie Mitchell?

Adam Jones has been a good guy.

Folkin-A!

Film review: Cowboys vs. Vikings - Bubble Watch edition

Dave Halprin — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 21:01:59 -0000

I’ve watched the film on the Dallas Cowboys game with the Minnesota Vikings and have compiled my film review – The Bubble Watch edition. Not quite a traditional film review, I concentrated on those areas where I think we have decisions to make. Mainly, this included the offensive line, WR, OLB and the secondary. Later tonight, I’ll post my 53-man roster prediction.

One note, the Cowboys sure wanted to get a look at the line, the receivers and Bartel because in the second half when the Vikings kept blitzing and getting pressure, the Cowboys kept on throwing the ball basically abandoning the running game.

Offensive line

Joe Berger – For the most part I liked the game he played and would rate it better than Pat McQuistan’s or Cory Procter’s. He showed good mobility when he had to pull and was also good about picking up the right defender on those plays. His pass protection was pretty solid for most of the evening. I saw him blow a pass protection on a stunt and then he just got beat another time. He was also slow getting out on a screen. But for most of the game he was delivering a very solid performance.

Pat McQuistan – McQ got almost all the snaps at Kyle Kosier’s vacant left guard position but had some problems along the way. He did have moments when he was powerful in the run game and showed some mobility on the pull blocks, but didn’t always find a guy to block. He had a few soft moments in pass protection including one pitiful play. He also had three plays where his run blocks were complete failures and one almost led to a turnover. He did get downfield nicely on a screen pass.

Cory Procter – Procter only played a couple of series at left guard towards the end of the game. My guess is they are not considering him seriously for Kosier’s spot. Procter still suffers from being a little soft in the middle, he’s very susceptible to getting pushed straight back and he’s not as agile when he has to pull. He showed nothing in this game that should really change his status one way or the other.

Doug Free – Good thing my man Free isn’t really fighting for a roster spot because he played a lousy game. He was repeatedly beaten in pass protection and had a hard time recognizing some of the blitzes and stunts. The speed rush was really giving him trouble.

James Marten – I actually came away with the feeling that Marten played alright for him, which isn’t an overwhelming endorsement. He still had plays where he whiffed on blocks or didn’t hold his ground, but they were fewer than I’ve come to expect from him.

Mike Jefferson – He had a few moments, especially towards the beginning where he caught some balls and made a few plays. He did have one easy drop and he didn’t show up on special teams at all. But he did get the nod as the starter next to Sam Hurd, so that could be an indication about how the Cowboys view him. He did get a couple of good blocks downfield in the run game.

Danny Amendola – He made a few plays catching the ball and blocking downfield, but really looks like if he’s going to stick it will be because he can add to the special teams. As both a backup punt and kick returner, he gets an advantage. But he didn’t exactly shine in this game, but didn’t make any big mistakes.

OLB

Justin Rogers – Don’t see him as “on the bubble” so didn’t chart him. They need his experience (the little he has) and his play on special teams.

Erik Walden – He didn’t really impress in the pass rush department but he did do a better job than I’ve seen him do before at standing his ground against the run. He did blow an easy tackle in the backfield on one play. But what caught my eye was that on four kick/punt coverage plays, Walden showed up around the ball and made a couple of tackles. If he can contribute on special teams, that’s a great sign for him sticking around.

Tearrius George – If George could have had a couple of more games like this or showed some of this in camp, the Cowboys would for sure create a place for him on the roster. The guy had at least six plays in the backfield. He had a great penetration blowing up a run, he got a couple of sacks and hit the QB a couple of other times disrupting passes. Now, he did a lot of this later in the game against the Vikings’ scrubs, but it still was an impressive performance. The question is - was it too late to change his future?

Darrell Robertson – Just didn’t do enough to change his fate.

CB/S

Evan Oglesby – Helped himself again this game with a nice breakup of a pass in the endzone, another pass break up later, a good tackle against the run and generally no big mistakes. The only bad thing I saw him do is use bad technique and turn his back to a receiver on a short pass. One problem for Oglesby is he doesn’t show up much on special teams and that could hurt his chances.

Alan Ball – Had one great special teams play on punt coverage and one good deep coverage but not much else. He just doesn’t make a lot of plays.

Dowayne Davis – A couple of nice tackles on defense but not much on special teams where he needs to shine to make the team. Didn’t really help himself much during the game.