Before I get into my Day Two Camp Report, I want to collectively thank all of you who expressed encouragement and/or appreciation of my reports. I love doing it, but it is much more rewarding for me when you guys like it. Keep the feedback coming.

Anyway, on to the report:

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The Titans officially opened training camp and their 2010-11 NFL season at Baptist Sports Park this evening. By my estimate about three hundred Titans faithful bore the heat to get a look at this latest iteration of two-toned blue. What follows are my observations from Day One.

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Today meaning Saturday 31 July 2010 @ 3:30pm. I'll be there. I plan to attend as many open camp dates as possible and come back with practice reports like those that I did before the 2008 season. Writing is about all I can do right now (still recovering from the broke collar bone). It may be tomorrow before I have my report typed up, but I will get it done.

Now for the big question:

Who's coming with me?

According to Anchor of Gold, Vanderbilt will soon announce that it has hired Herb Hand to fill its coaching vacancy as offensive line coach. For those of you who don't know, Herb Hand was one-half of the offensive coordinating staff at Tulsa that coached the Golden Hurricane to lead the nation in total yards on offense in 2007 and 2008. The other offensive coordinator? Gus Malzahn.

So I suggest that we of Orange Nation begin to cultivate a healthy respect for our brothers down I-40, because they are going to be a force. 

Paul Kuharsky, long-time Titans beat writer and current ESPN AFC South blogger, has been doing a fabulous series called "Early Influence" this offeseason. Colts RB Joseph Addai had this to say about Coach Dooley:

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This post may not be completely appropriate for MCM because it isn't about the Titans, but we have many intelligent football fans here. I want to see what you think about my theory.

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Bill Connelly, one of the college football writers for Football Outsiders, unveiled the first 15 of his projected Top 25 teams for the upcoming season. Your University of Tennessee Volunteers come in 20th, between Nebraska and Georgia.

Connelly, and his fellow writer and researcher Brian Fremeau, correctly predicted the 2009 Vols 7-5 regular season record on 7/11/09 in the Football Outsiders Almanac 2009. The Football Outsiders Almanac 2010 will be available for download on July 8, but the college football portion will be available on July 1. I know I'll be buying it, and I suggest anyone who thinks himself or herself a diehard football fan do the same.

Not that this was unexpected but according to GM David Poile, Denis Grebeshkov is probably not going to be retained by the Nashville Predators. On Monday's Wake Up Zone on 104.5 Poile implied that Grebeshkov's $3.1 million salary made it difficult to bring him back. Poile also expressed excitement about Swedish Swiss prospect Roman Josi, a very offensive-minded defenseman who lit it up with Bern SC. Check out Josi's highlight video here.

What I propose is largely based on Clay Travis' ideas. He has advocated that the SEC expand to 16 teams and split the conference into 4 divisions. After the jump I'll work out the hypothetical logistics.

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Doug Farrar, of Football Outsiders fame, is doing a regular column for Yahoo! Sports on each of the 32 NFL teams. Here is his piece on the Titans. Juicy bits after the jump.

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After our great discussion in the comment section of Thursday's links, I ventured far from our wonderful internet community to Chris Brown's (not that one, or that one) excellent blog Smart Football. I found an article in his archives from July 2009, where he discusses the same things that came up in the comment thread here. Some juicy bits after the jump.

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Has anyone ever messed with them? Does anyone keep up with NCAA baseball statistics?

I got a wild hair last night to start looking around for NCAA baseball sabermetrics, but my quick search didn't turn up anything. I'm familiar with Davenport Translations, but I wondered if anyone had ever attempted to examine the college game like the pro game.

I realize there is a tremendous difficulty as there are over 300 Division I teams alone. I'm just curious to see if anyone has taken a stab at cracking open the college game. Perhaps just the College World Series?

If anyone has any links or ideas, they would be most appreciated. Thanks.

Am I crazy for asking that? Perhaps. But according to this thing, Nashville has a chance to do it.

A chance? Like 1 in 100?

No. More like 1 in 2,891.

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On Sunday, Tennessee and Green Bay will begin the November portion of their respective schedules playing each other at LP Field. The teams are already familiar with each other, having met in Green Bay in August for their final pre-season game.

The Packers come into the game tied with the Bears at 4-3 in the NFC North, and they look to keep pace with Chicago while the Bears will spend their weekend on a bye playing the Detroit Lions. The Packers will have preparation in their favor when they come to Nashville, as they are returning from their week 8 bye.

With a short work week the Titans are grateful to stay at home, having taken down the reigning AFC South champion Indianapolis Colts on Monday Night Football. This game will be Tennessee's toughest yet, as Green Bay will be the only other team that the Titans have faced this season that owns a winning record (Baltimore is the other, also 4-3).

While matchup previews on the Network (NFL) and the Worldwide Leader (ESPN) will probably provide plenty of traditional football analysis (opinion), I've decided to do something different (numbers).

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http://is.gd/35i9

That has all the details. Fisher wouldn't say if the move is permanent.

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This lower limit on words has got to stop.

The lights were up and the crowd was out at tonight's practice. There were probably about a thousand people at Baptist Sports Park to see the Titans practice under the new lights.

After opening stretches the team split into positions, and I watched the receivers warm-up. Nothing spectacular to see except that after warmups Justin McCarreins, 19, didn't participate in any of the drills. I presume Jim Wyatt will have something to say about it in the Tennessean soon.

I'm going to retract my prediction about Chris Davis (the old one, not the new one), 17, not making the 53-man roster. He and TE Jamie Petrowski, 85, were the most impressive players in full team drills tonight, making difficult catches and taking hard hits immediately.

Vince looked inconsistent all night. Early in drills he threw a beautiful bomb down the right sideline for a touchdown, however it was on the other side of the field and I couldn't see the receiver. Later on he started looking like Vince of last season, not stepping through his throws and lobbing balls into the ground 3 yards in front of the intended receiver.

The defense appeared to be working on corner blitzes much of the night. I saw Cortland Finnegan, 31, make a blitz that would have resulted in a sack had it been a game, and Reynaldo Hill, 21, blitzed later on with the second unit.

Before team drills I watched the LBs go one-on-one against the RBs in a blitz pickup drill. The result was advantage RBs. Suprisingly, Chris Johnson, 28, more than held his own despite his size, and he also impressed running the ball in full team drills.

That's all for now. I planned on going to tomorrow's practice at 11:30am but am unable to attend so if any intrepid reader would like to go scouting at camp I'd very much appreciate your report.

Thanks,

Jason

The first public practice under the new lights is tonight at 7:30pm at Baptist Sports Park.

I'll be there keeping an eye on Chris Davis, Chris Davis, and everyone named Williams. I should have a report posted tonight when I get home.

If you have any particular things you would like answered just leave a comment below, and I'll try to respond to it tonight.

This sentence is completely arbitrary because I haven't reached the word quota.

Today's training camp was the first in shoulder pads and my first to watch this season. The team worked on field 3 (the far one) for about two and a half hours beginning with stretches, position drills, small unit work, and finishing with 11 on 11.

I stood on the 10 yard line away from the bubble for the duration of the practice and got great looks at the running backs doing individual drills, the linebackers and safeties working against the running backs and tight ends, the O-line and D-line working against each other, and the 11 on 11 work.

Here are my thoughts on the day:

Chris Johnson - Runs individual drills lazily, didn't impress catching the ball, but he definitely shows up during the full team work, fast and agile

Chris Davis - Will not make the team, consistently dropped passes and punts

Albert Haynesworth - Didn't look like he missed anything at all by not coming to OTAs, dude is a beast

Kyle Vanden Bosch - I expect him to repeat at the Pro Bowl this year. When working against Michael Roos it was about half success, half failure, but against anyone else he absolutely dominated.

Jevon Kearse - Looked good in drills, they was a funny moment when a trainer was working on his right arm during the full team drills and Jim Washburn looks over and yells, "Are you two bullshitting or is he actually hurt?" A couple of plays later Tony Joiner (a fellow Florida alum) put a massive hit on Craig Stevens in the flat and Kearse was seen doing the Gator Chomp from the sideline.

Vince Young - Looked excellent. The 53 yard bomb to McCarreins was thrown perfectly, but I was more impressed by work he did working with just the backs and tight ends. I recall numerous plays from last season when Vince would throw poorly to the flats, hitting Ahmard Hall or LenDale White in the feet. I watched him throw these routes with all of his back today, and Vince was perfect every time.

Biren Ealy - Caught everything thrown his way, the dude is going to impress this year. He is very shifty. Reminds me a little of what Wes Welker does in the open field.

Jason Jones/William Hayes - You'll hear Washburn yelling at these two a lot in drills because they are raw, but make no mistake they are going to develop into some excellent linemen.

That's all I remember off the top of my head, but feel free to ask about anyone I left out. Things are looking good from July 27th. Go Titans!

The Preds signed G Dan Ellis to a 2-year deal yesterday and traded G Chris Mason to division rival St. Louis.

They also signed D Ryan Suter to a contract extension.

LW Darcy Hordichuk was acquired by the Carolina Hurricanes in exchange for a fifth-round pick in 2009. Should they fail to sign him Carolina will receive Nashville's fifth-round pick in 2010.

All of this is good news for the Preds if they can replace Darcy's size and aggression. Though he did not contribute much in points he was a bruiser and besides Jordan Tootoo we are deficient in that respect.

This is my projection for the 53 man roster at the end of August. Much of this is conjecture, hunch, and guess and should not be interpreted as final. I also make not mention of who is starting or where; I'm just listing position groups.

Here it goes:

QB - Vince Young, Kerry Collins

WR - Justin Gage, Brandon Jones, Justin McCareins, Roydell Williams, Mike Williams, Biren Ealy, Lavelle Hawkins

RB - Lendale White, Chris Johnson, Chris Henry

FB - Ahmard Hall, Casey Cramer

TE - Alge Crumpler, Bo Scaife, Dwayne Blakely, Craig Stephens

OL - Michael Roos, Eugene Amano, Kevin Mawae, Jake Scott, David Stewart, Daniel Loper, Leroy Harris, Michael Otto

DL - Albert Haynesworth, Kyle Vanden Bosch, Jevon Kearse, Tony Brown, Jason Jones, William Hayes, Antonio Johnson, Jacob Ford

LB - David Thornton, Keith Bulluck, Ryan Fowler, Stephen Tulloch, Stanford Keglar, Ken Amato, Colin Allred

CB - Nick Harper, Cortland Finnegan, Reynaldo Hill, Chris Carr, Cary Williams, Eric King

S - Chris Hope, Michael Griffin, Vincent Fuller, Donnie Nicky

K - Rob Bironas

P - Craig Hentrich

Discuss/Criticize with impunity!

Pessimistic Things I Think:

1) For the place known as Music City, the Titans have a god-awful in-stadium sound system. Mr Adams would be good to dismantle the south endzone audio assault weapon and replace it with a remote speaker in every section, but that would cost money so it won't happen.

2) Due to the facility sharing that takes place between the Titans and TSU, the field becomes a disaster area by mid-October every season. The obvious solution would be to replace the field with the nifty rubberized ball turf material, but another would be to refurbish/build a new football facility for TSU. As a TSU student I would prefer the latter, but it is a moot point anyway because both cost money.

3) This really isn't about LP Field but about the fans: despite the fact that we have a nice consecutive sellout streak the stadium appears at best 3/4 full  most of the time. Regardless of how the game ends there may be only 2/3 of the fans that came to the game left by the it's over. This is a disgrace. For the "best fans in the NFL" we certainly have lackluster support actually at the game.

These are the things I've noticed at games since 1999. What are your thoughts on the matter? Any other complaints or proposed solutions?