Category Archives: ALL-STAR GAME REPORTS

SHRINE REPORT Day Two

Another sunny and warmer than normal January day in Central Florida and just before the East morning practice began the field was invaded by a complete crew of area referees to oversee practices and give players tips on what penalties might have been called and why. Good idea says Pigskin Paul. The more I see of Kansas S/Fish… Read More »

SHRINE WEEK 2017 DAY 1

Monday marked the first day of practices for Shrine Week in St. Pete. Partly cloudy skies which gave way to full sunshine by late afternoon and a high temp of about 78F. The EAST SQUAD took the practice field at Shore Crest Academy on the North side of town. A miscellaneous group of mostly young NFL assistant coaches… Read More »

ALL-STAR GAME Draft Winner 2016

My favorite two weeks of the year come in January when I spend time traveling to the Shrine Game practices and game, followed by a jaunt across the Florida Panhandle to Mobile to take part in the Reese’s’ Senior Bowl week of events. The combination of time actually on the field scouting and interacting with a couple hundred… Read More »

Senior Bowl Game Report: LBs and DBs

by Grumpy Lindsay Because of the Senior Bowl rules limiting what defenses can and can’t do in the game itself, there isn’t a whole lot that one is going to learn from Saturday’s game tape about the LBs and DBs. However, one can always have observations so here goes with some passing thoughts on the defensive back 7… Read More »

Senior Bowl Game Report: Offensive Skill Positions

by Grumpy Lindsay Nothin’ much to see here folks … let’s just move along … College all-star games are usually tough venues for the offensive skill position players. As a general rule, they don’t get many reps and for the most part are playing in unfamiliar systems. So what made this year’s Senior Bowl game somewhat unusual is… Read More »

Senior Bowl Game Report: Offensive Line

by Grumpy Lindsay, GBN Editor and Publisher While the top storyline out of last week’s Senior Bowl revolved around the number of defensive linemen, and especially the defensive tackles, who have emerged as legitimate first and second day prospects for the 2016 draft, in part as a result of their solid performances in both the practices and game… Read More »

SENIOR BOWL Gameday thoughts & All-Game Team

Another Senior Bowl is in the record books and it’s now time to pour over 5 days worth of notes and replay the action in my dreams (I hope). After my 500 mile drive from Mobile back to Orlando Sunday I am now ready to present my Game All-Star team. QB DAK PRESCOTT/MISS STATE RB TYLER ERVIN/SAN JOSE… Read More »

SENIOR BOWL DL POSITIONAL REVIEW

Defensive line by Grumpy Lindsay Arguably, the top storyline to emerge at this year’s Senior Bowl, and maybe for the whole draft overall has been the emergence of the defensive line, and especially the defensive tackles, as one of, if not the best unit in this year’s draft class. The DTs dominated with their quickness and athleticism at… Read More »

SENIOR BOWL ALL-PRACTICE TEAM

Before they put the pads on and play for real it’s time to post my All-Practice Team. THis list is a combination of my own observations and opinions as well as some thoughts of others here in Mobile for the week. QB CARSON WENTZ/N Dakota State RB KENNY DIXON/Louisiana Tech FB DAN VITALE/Northwestern WR STERLING SHEPARD/Oklahoma WR BRAXTON… Read More »

SENIOR BOWL THURSDAY

Today was day three of team practices, and the final ones of the week. I was very surprised to see so few NFL personnel people in the stands this morning at LADD-PEEPLES Stadium. Given that these were full pad practices, I expected that NFL folks would stick around through today. Some teams still had a strong presence while… Read More »

SENIOR BOWL Wednesday

We had an almost normal day of action here in Mobile. I say almost because practices didn’t begin until Noon. The plan to avoid the rain worked out pretty well but the skies never cleared. The high temperature never quite made 50 and 10-15 mph winds blew in from the Northwest. In other words a pretty normal January… Read More »

SENIOR BOWL Tuesday

by GBN Associate Editor Pigskin Paul Guillemette Under the new Senior Bowl setup today was really the first day of events open to the media and the public. Sorry for my late report, but the day began at 8 AM and I just got back to my hotel about 8:45 PM. Not complaining folks, just telling you the… Read More »

pigskin shrine game review

by Pigskin Paul Guillemette That faint echo you hear is the wailing and gnashing of teeth around the NFL in Personnel Departments as they pore over game tape from yesterday’s SHRINE GAME action and realize there is no way to deny the poor quality of QB play Saturday, other than the lone exception of VERNON ADAMS/Oregon. And with… Read More »

Grumpy’s Shrine Game Report

by Grumpy Lindsay, GBN Editor and Publisher The small SHALL inherit the earth … That was the theme of the football sermon during Saturday’s East-West Shrine all-star game in St. Petersburg where Oregon QB Vernon Adams was the unquestioned star of the game. Indeed, while the other QBs all struggled to one degree or another, Adams who looked… Read More »

SHRINE GAME Gameday

Hopefully you have been following my practice reports all week and have some ideas of what to watch for this afternoon. But at the risk of shooting myself in the foot let me start the gameday coverage with some projections and other last minute observations. The good news for most fans is that I still expect both Head… Read More »

SRHINE GAME Practice Wrap

Thursday was the final day of real practices, and was spent mostly on Special Teams work. Both practice sessions looked like ghost towns compared to earlier in the week. NFL Personnel people pretty much all left town Wednesday night or Thursday morning. NO doubt most are headed home to see their families before jumping back into things next… Read More »

SHRINE WEEK Wednesday Report

Wednesday is always the highlight day of Shrine Week. The players have had three days to meet with their coaches and absorb football information. Hopefully they have assimilated that information and can execute on the grass based upon it. So today is the day that the coaches ramp up the intensity and pace of practice. And of course… Read More »

Shrine Game Tuesday

It was a crisp and windy morning in St. Pete Tuesday with temps in the low 40’s as the East practice began. Being almost on the bay meant the wind was coming in crisply across the cold Winter water of Tampa Bay. I ran into PACKERS GM TED THOMPSON entering the field area. When I asked him how… Read More »

Shrine Game Monday

SHRINE WEEK has begun, with perhaps the best overall quality rosters in over a decade. Being a former teacher one of my first tasks at each practice is to take roster attendance. Everyone present and accounted for at the East practice session. However, one big absence later on at the West practice. Perhaps the No. 1 Draft prospect… Read More »

SHRINE WEEK PREVIEW

This weekend former college football players (that’s official now for seniors) will be arriving in Tampa, St. Pete and a few other West Central Florida airports to begin taking part in the Shrine Game week activities. The first practices will be Monday afternoon, after a closed weigh-in session (archaic) in the morning. The week will be filled with… Read More »

Medal of Honor standouts

I must apologize for the delay in getting this game report out to you, but with the rapid fire 3 straight weeks of All-Star games in January, I plain and simply got swamped with travel and learning new rosters. I have now watched the replay of the Medal of Honor Game 3 times. And here is my All-Star… Read More »

SHRINE GAME Player Rankings

Time to flash back less than two full weeks and revisit the SHRINE All-Star venue for a bit. I am venturing back to rank all of the participating players as I did for the Senior Bowl earlier this week. The delay is primarily because we had the Shrine Game two Saturdays ago, then I spent Sunday watching NFL… Read More »

SENIOR BOWL Player Rankings

Now that the dust has settled on the game week, but before we completely put the 2015 Senior Bowl in the rear view window I will be ranking every player from the final game roster based on what I saw of them at the weigh-in, during practices and in game action. This is not to imply that this… Read More »

SHRINE GAME STANDOUTS

The 2015 SENIOR BOWL is in the books. I’ve departed Mobile and am in route to Central Florida. Despite a relatively lopsided score the game was competitive for almost a full 3 quarters. For the 17 years I have attended this game today was the most run heavy game I have ever seen for any All-Star game. A… Read More »

Senior Bowl Practice Stars

Senior Bowl Practice Stars: Had a chance to reflect on everything we’ve seen at Senior Bowl practice sessions this week in Mobile and here’s my list of the top performers that I saw on each team. Will be interesting to see if these guys can maintain the pace in the actual game tomorrow. NORTH: #86 NICK BOYLE/TE #3… Read More »