Several things emerged Friday night in the win over the Buffalo Bills that were more significant than the splashy AUDIE COLE touchdowns. The team improved dramatically off the first preseason game where we had some guys play poorly, many play average, some play well and nobody look great.
In the win against the Bills we had some key players look very, very good:
CHRISTIAN PONDER -- He was fantastic and continues to look like the offense is his. He switched into good plays at the line, took a couple of sacks early and bounced back and made plays all over the field.
On the sweet hit to TOBY GERHART over the middle the play personified Toby is a mismatch for many linebackers when catching in space, and the concept was terrific. KYLE RUDOLPH ran a vertical route down the middle and forced the safeties to respect him. Thus, when Toby entered the mix from the backfield he was all alone and made a big play.
Christian looked all around the field, all the while knowing he was going to Toby and sold it like a pro.
Rookies JOSH ROBINSON, BLAIR WALSH, MATT KALIL and HARRISON SMITH all played well, too, and the restructuring of the roster was apparent Friday night. MISTRAL RAYMOND played his best game as a pro and didn't seem to make a mistake. Yep, a safety was knifing through for tackles for loss and causing a smart QB in RYAN FITZPATRICK to look elsewhere. Mistral looked the part Friday night.
We'll miss JEROME SIMPSON when he's out the first three. His speed is legit and against the Bills his concentration was spot on. The knock on Jerome has been consistency -- he'll have a monster game then follow it up with a couple of duds.
I envision some MUSGRAVE sets that include CARLSON and Rudolph, PERCY and JEROME and ADRIAN and ELLISON out of the backfield. That excites me because it appears Christian knows where to go with the ball.
