Coming off back to back losses is always tough but you have to keep your head up. Luckily we finally got to relax as we had a home game against the Portland Pythons. The week leading up to the game was pretty standard stuff. We had Monday and Tuesday off, practice Wednesday and Thursday, and walkthroughs on Friday with the game being on Saturday. Monday night to lift our spirits the team bought out roughly half of the Commodore Theatre, a fine dining restaurant within an auditorium. We got to watch Tenet, a sci-fi movie where a secret agent travels in time to try and prevent the start of World War III. It was a pretty solid movie. The food there was also pretty solid. I ended up getting a barbecued beef sandwich and a hot caramel granny apple pie with ice cream. Hope that was okay with the team dietician. On Tuesday me and some of the guys went to Elizabeth River Boat Landing Park to fish for a few hours. I’m not going to say there was a competition but let us just say I definitely caught more fish than our GM, The Great Bean. On Wednesday morning we watched a lot of film on where things went wrong. I personally had to work on being quicker around the edge to put pressure on the QB. In the afternoon after lunch we started with some standard practice drills split up by position. Lots of karate drills for me to get better at hand fighting with offensive linemen. Thursday was a lot of the same with a full offense vs defense drill/game where coaches could watch and correct us in action out on the field. Friday was a lot slower and focused more on technique and recovery rather than all out playing. Now it was gameday. The Portland Pythons were in town and ready to showdown. Everyone was fairly serious leading up to the game as we didn’t want to lose 3 in a row. In the first quarter everyone started off pretty slow. We took the lead with a Murder-Moose field goal. Unfortunately in the 2nd quarter they got 2 touchdowns, one passing and one rushing. We only had another field goal, this one from 45 yards out. At halftime we had to change some stuff up. Going into the 3rd quarter we were rejuvenated but it just didn’t matter, the Pythons got another touchdown while we only got a field goal. No points were scored for the rest of the game and we ended up losing our third straight 21-9. No one was in a very good mood after the game, but Coach gave a great speech that lifted our heads and got us ready to go into the next game in Minnesota against the Grey Ducks.
As usual we had Monday off. I went kayaking up at the MWR Norfolk Naval Sailing Center and Marina. The bay was pretty nice to paddle around in and get some sun to clear my mind off football. I met some of the team at a nearby restaurant, Naval Station Norfolk Base Gallery, for a quick lunch of burgers and fries before heading back to my apartment. I spent a lot of the afternoon looking at film and trying to see where things have been going wrong and where I could improve at. That evening I grouped up with the rest of the defensive line to play some CoD Warzone squads. We won 1 out of our 8ish games. Tuesday the coaches had us come in for a few hours to watch some film with our positional coach. We also got our weightlifting in and a bit of conditioning. That evening not much really happened. I watched some Netflix, continuing The Last Chance U. On Wednesday we all met for standard activities of film and positional practice. We focused a lot on starting stance, alignment, and release. Something we worked on was edge protection against the run by using our defensive tackles to hit the side of the offensive tackle so the defensive end could have a better position around the side. We did similar drills on Thursday except we were against our offensive line. This allowed us to put what we did on Wednesday into practice which helps drive home teaching points. Friday was our normal recovery day. We tried something new for recovery, or at least new to me, dry needling. Dry needling is a form of deep tissue work in which a physical therapist inserts a hypodermic needle into the muscles to release myofascial adhesions. It was a pretty weird feeling. I think I’ll stick with my normal massage and foam rolling, unless I end up with great results. I felt great Saturday morning for the game. Made myself a breakfast parfait with greek yogurt, dark chocolate granola, raspberries and blueberries. Delicious, some might call me a chef. We went over final game plan strategies and a few walkthroughs of various stunts and screen recognition drills. We came out solid in the first quarter tacking on a couple of field goals from Murder-Moose. Other than those we didn’t do much but the Ducks did nothing. Going into the second quarter we scored first with another field goal. The Gray Ducks got a short touchdown run to close out the half. This was our closest game in a while so we were pretty pumped in the locker room. The third quarter was a slugfest but we came away on top with another field goal. However, in the 4th quarter they got a touchdown with 8 minutes to go but failed the 2pt conversion so they were only up by one point. We couldn’t get going on offense and the Grey Ducks ran another touchdown in with less than a minute to go to finish us off. Final score of 19-12. We had some good takeaways from this game but we’ve got to find some way to get Ramza back on track. We’ve got to move on as we had the Dallas Birddogs coming to town. There is no way we lose 5 in a row right?
Monday the people at Sail Nauticus were nice enough to let me rent a Lazer for the day. No not like a beam of light lazer, a boat called a Lazer. It had been a little over half a year since I had gotten to sail around so it felt good to coast around. All the bigger boats around me gave me plenty of space. There were a couple other sailboats coasting around as well. Brought my lunch out with me to eat on the boat, good ol Subway sandwiches. Once I got off the water I went back to the apartment and showered before meeting up with the boys for some dinner. We met up at Brick Anchor, a brew house just off Boush Street. I grabbed some pulled pork tacos for dinner. This place is known for its microbrews though and man there were a lot of them. I ended up with an Isley Irish Red Ale, a Weihenstephaner Kristallweissbier, and an Oozlefinch Lady in White. Because honestly at a place like this you’re picking for names. Tuesday we spent the morning at the practice facility watching some film and getting a quick workout in. In the afternoon we went to the Virginia Zoo. The zoo is home to more than 700 animals and countless unique plants. The animals were split up in the zoo by where they are from. The main exhibits were the Africa-Okavango Delta, Asia-Trail of the Tiger, Australia Walkabout, North America, World of Reptile and Friends, and lastly the ZooFarm. Why did the North America exhibit get such a boring name. Overall my favorite exhibit was the Australia Walkabout. Who doesn’t love watching Wallabies and their Joeys walking around. So cute. For a midafternoon snack we stopped by the Beastro to get some soft-serve ice cream that you can design your own flavor at. Wednesday we were back at the stadium with positional drills. We focused a lot on various stunts. We are trying to establish the best way to pass rush. The philosophy was to have someone rushing at every level. My role was to get as deep as I can to force the QB to step up into our defensive tackles while my opposite side defensive end only went 3-5 yards in to prevent a scramble. The gap behind me was covered by a linebacker or safety that typically sits in a QB spy or a middle hook zone. On Thursday we got to put this into practice and it worked very well. It also forced our offense to adapt to the rush and get practice against a difficult rush. Friday was pretty standard with film review from the Thursday practice to iron out the final issues. Saturday we showed up for gameday to start getting ready for the game. We were determined to stop this losing streak against a weaker team in the Birddogs. The game started off fairly even with a touchdown a piece in the first quarter. We finally got some points that weren’t from a field goal, first time in 2 games. Good signs. Going into the second quarter we got the lead off a short touchdown pass. Birddogs followed this up with a field goal. Going into halftime we had a lead for the first time in awhile and we were feeling good about ourselves. Coach kept us focused and we got ready to close this game out. The third quarter was pretty quiet with no points being scored. In the fourth quarter the Birddogs took a small lead off of a touchdown pass. With 4 minutes left we took the lead back with another passing touchdown. As time expired we also snuck in another touchdown on the ground. We finally got Ramza going again with three touchdowns. There wasn’t a single sack given up, probably from the adaptations that they had to make in practice Thursday. The defense also secured a couple of sacks using the new strategy. We finally stopped the losing streak. Looking forward to traveling to Myrtle Beach to take on the Buccaneers.
We left for Myrtle Beach on Monday morning. It wasn’t a terribly long drive. We took a few buses and left for the 5 and a half hour drive. Most people either watched tv shows, movies or played cards. I personally just continued reading the Stormlight Archive. Best epic fantasy series out and you can’t change my mind. We arrived at Myrtle Beach around 4pm and got settled into our hotel. Our GMs got us a fairly nice hotel at the Oceanfront Hampton Inn. This thing is 14 stories tall, that’s a lot of rooms. Tuesday we were allowed to explore the city for a while. Let's be honest though, we went to the beach. We spent most of the day on the beach after getting breakfast at Johnny D’s Waffles and Benedicts. I had a fantastic waffle platter with 2 waffles, 2 eggs and some bacon. Had to get some extra bacon because of how good they were. Afterwards we went and chilled on the beach for the rest of the day. We got to have our team meetings on the beach in the morning. It was fairly standard stuff, we watched some film on iPads. We had some team made food so that our diet wasn’t completely thrown off for the day. The rest of the afternoon we floated and swan on the beach and honestly got a pretty good workout. For dinner we went to the Mellow Mushroom, a highly rated pizza place. I got three slices of their Funky Q. Chicken pizza. It was shredded mozzarella topped with barbecue chicken, cheddar cheese, caramelized onions, and applewood smoked bacon. Tuesday was a lot of fun but Wednesday it was back to business. We got a tour of the stadium in the morning as us rookies had never been there before. We got dropped off at our meeting room and immediately split into film breakdown before heading to the practice field for positional drills. We had pretty standard stuff. Agility drills, handwork and footwork drills, and review on the three level method of pass rushing. Thursday we had our offense versus defense drills on the actual field, we had it for the morning, Buccaneers used it in the afternoon. It was pretty standard play calling as we didn’t want to give away much or change much from last week as we had a very good showing. Friday we did our playbook planning based on what was going well and what wasn’t. We did some walkthrough on the practice field and got ready for gameday. Saturday rolled around and we were ready to play. Boy was it a slugfest. We started of decently getting a touchdown in the first quarter. Ramza getting back in stride with a 10 yard touchdown run. In the second quarter they struck back with a touchdown of their own. We weren’t held scoreless in the half with a nice 42 yard field goal in the final minutes. The third quarter was a defensive showcase on both sides as no point were scored at all. Then the fourth was a defensive masterclass as the coaches on both sides couldn’t get the better of either team after halftime. The game ended after Murder-Moose coffin cornered them on a 71 yard punt, nuts. We finished the game with 6 sacks led by Rucker and Jaxon-Waxon. The final score was 10-7. Now it might have been a team bus on the way to Myrtle Beach but on the way home it was a party bus. Someone must’ve snuck out early and grabbed champagne before we start the drive home because there was plenty of that going around. It always feels good to win. That night we partied, knowing that next week we had another tough road game at Kansas City.
As usual we had Monday off. I went kayaking up at the MWR Norfolk Naval Sailing Center and Marina. The bay was pretty nice to paddle around in and get some sun to clear my mind off football. I met some of the team at a nearby restaurant, Naval Station Norfolk Base Gallery, for a quick lunch of burgers and fries before heading back to my apartment. I spent a lot of the afternoon looking at film and trying to see where things have been going wrong and where I could improve at. That evening I grouped up with the rest of the defensive line to play some CoD Warzone squads. We won 1 out of our 8ish games. Tuesday the coaches had us come in for a few hours to watch some film with our positional coach. We also got our weightlifting in and a bit of conditioning. That evening not much really happened. I watched some Netflix, continuing The Last Chance U. On Wednesday we all met for standard activities of film and positional practice. We focused a lot on starting stance, alignment, and release. Something we worked on was edge protection against the run by using our defensive tackles to hit the side of the offensive tackle so the defensive end could have a better position around the side. We did similar drills on Thursday except we were against our offensive line. This allowed us to put what we did on Wednesday into practice which helps drive home teaching points. Friday was our normal recovery day. We tried something new for recovery, or at least new to me, dry needling. Dry needling is a form of deep tissue work in which a physical therapist inserts a hypodermic needle into the muscles to release myofascial adhesions. It was a pretty weird feeling. I think I’ll stick with my normal massage and foam rolling, unless I end up with great results. I felt great Saturday morning for the game. Made myself a breakfast parfait with greek yogurt, dark chocolate granola, raspberries and blueberries. Delicious, some might call me a chef. We went over final game plan strategies and a few walkthroughs of various stunts and screen recognition drills. We came out solid in the first quarter tacking on a couple of field goals from Murder-Moose. Other than those we didn’t do much but the Ducks did nothing. Going into the second quarter we scored first with another field goal. The Gray Ducks got a short touchdown run to close out the half. This was our closest game in a while so we were pretty pumped in the locker room. The third quarter was a slugfest but we came away on top with another field goal. However, in the 4th quarter they got a touchdown with 8 minutes to go but failed the 2pt conversion so they were only up by one point. We couldn’t get going on offense and the Grey Ducks ran another touchdown in with less than a minute to go to finish us off. Final score of 19-12. We had some good takeaways from this game but we’ve got to find some way to get Ramza back on track. We’ve got to move on as we had the Dallas Birddogs coming to town. There is no way we lose 5 in a row right?
Monday the people at Sail Nauticus were nice enough to let me rent a Lazer for the day. No not like a beam of light lazer, a boat called a Lazer. It had been a little over half a year since I had gotten to sail around so it felt good to coast around. All the bigger boats around me gave me plenty of space. There were a couple other sailboats coasting around as well. Brought my lunch out with me to eat on the boat, good ol Subway sandwiches. Once I got off the water I went back to the apartment and showered before meeting up with the boys for some dinner. We met up at Brick Anchor, a brew house just off Boush Street. I grabbed some pulled pork tacos for dinner. This place is known for its microbrews though and man there were a lot of them. I ended up with an Isley Irish Red Ale, a Weihenstephaner Kristallweissbier, and an Oozlefinch Lady in White. Because honestly at a place like this you’re picking for names. Tuesday we spent the morning at the practice facility watching some film and getting a quick workout in. In the afternoon we went to the Virginia Zoo. The zoo is home to more than 700 animals and countless unique plants. The animals were split up in the zoo by where they are from. The main exhibits were the Africa-Okavango Delta, Asia-Trail of the Tiger, Australia Walkabout, North America, World of Reptile and Friends, and lastly the ZooFarm. Why did the North America exhibit get such a boring name. Overall my favorite exhibit was the Australia Walkabout. Who doesn’t love watching Wallabies and their Joeys walking around. So cute. For a midafternoon snack we stopped by the Beastro to get some soft-serve ice cream that you can design your own flavor at. Wednesday we were back at the stadium with positional drills. We focused a lot on various stunts. We are trying to establish the best way to pass rush. The philosophy was to have someone rushing at every level. My role was to get as deep as I can to force the QB to step up into our defensive tackles while my opposite side defensive end only went 3-5 yards in to prevent a scramble. The gap behind me was covered by a linebacker or safety that typically sits in a QB spy or a middle hook zone. On Thursday we got to put this into practice and it worked very well. It also forced our offense to adapt to the rush and get practice against a difficult rush. Friday was pretty standard with film review from the Thursday practice to iron out the final issues. Saturday we showed up for gameday to start getting ready for the game. We were determined to stop this losing streak against a weaker team in the Birddogs. The game started off fairly even with a touchdown a piece in the first quarter. We finally got some points that weren’t from a field goal, first time in 2 games. Good signs. Going into the second quarter we got the lead off a short touchdown pass. Birddogs followed this up with a field goal. Going into halftime we had a lead for the first time in awhile and we were feeling good about ourselves. Coach kept us focused and we got ready to close this game out. The third quarter was pretty quiet with no points being scored. In the fourth quarter the Birddogs took a small lead off of a touchdown pass. With 4 minutes left we took the lead back with another passing touchdown. As time expired we also snuck in another touchdown on the ground. We finally got Ramza going again with three touchdowns. There wasn’t a single sack given up, probably from the adaptations that they had to make in practice Thursday. The defense also secured a couple of sacks using the new strategy. We finally stopped the losing streak. Looking forward to traveling to Myrtle Beach to take on the Buccaneers.
We left for Myrtle Beach on Monday morning. It wasn’t a terribly long drive. We took a few buses and left for the 5 and a half hour drive. Most people either watched tv shows, movies or played cards. I personally just continued reading the Stormlight Archive. Best epic fantasy series out and you can’t change my mind. We arrived at Myrtle Beach around 4pm and got settled into our hotel. Our GMs got us a fairly nice hotel at the Oceanfront Hampton Inn. This thing is 14 stories tall, that’s a lot of rooms. Tuesday we were allowed to explore the city for a while. Let's be honest though, we went to the beach. We spent most of the day on the beach after getting breakfast at Johnny D’s Waffles and Benedicts. I had a fantastic waffle platter with 2 waffles, 2 eggs and some bacon. Had to get some extra bacon because of how good they were. Afterwards we went and chilled on the beach for the rest of the day. We got to have our team meetings on the beach in the morning. It was fairly standard stuff, we watched some film on iPads. We had some team made food so that our diet wasn’t completely thrown off for the day. The rest of the afternoon we floated and swan on the beach and honestly got a pretty good workout. For dinner we went to the Mellow Mushroom, a highly rated pizza place. I got three slices of their Funky Q. Chicken pizza. It was shredded mozzarella topped with barbecue chicken, cheddar cheese, caramelized onions, and applewood smoked bacon. Tuesday was a lot of fun but Wednesday it was back to business. We got a tour of the stadium in the morning as us rookies had never been there before. We got dropped off at our meeting room and immediately split into film breakdown before heading to the practice field for positional drills. We had pretty standard stuff. Agility drills, handwork and footwork drills, and review on the three level method of pass rushing. Thursday we had our offense versus defense drills on the actual field, we had it for the morning, Buccaneers used it in the afternoon. It was pretty standard play calling as we didn’t want to give away much or change much from last week as we had a very good showing. Friday we did our playbook planning based on what was going well and what wasn’t. We did some walkthrough on the practice field and got ready for gameday. Saturday rolled around and we were ready to play. Boy was it a slugfest. We started of decently getting a touchdown in the first quarter. Ramza getting back in stride with a 10 yard touchdown run. In the second quarter they struck back with a touchdown of their own. We weren’t held scoreless in the half with a nice 42 yard field goal in the final minutes. The third quarter was a defensive showcase on both sides as no point were scored at all. Then the fourth was a defensive masterclass as the coaches on both sides couldn’t get the better of either team after halftime. The game ended after Murder-Moose coffin cornered them on a 71 yard punt, nuts. We finished the game with 6 sacks led by Rucker and Jaxon-Waxon. The final score was 10-7. Now it might have been a team bus on the way to Myrtle Beach but on the way home it was a party bus. Someone must’ve snuck out early and grabbed champagne before we start the drive home because there was plenty of that going around. It always feels good to win. That night we partied, knowing that next week we had another tough road game at Kansas City.
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