Pre-season Week 2: Four-Pack #3

TEN @ STL

• It looks like the Rams went in with a simple game-plan: get Steven Jackson his first touches of the pre-season and see what they've got in Mike Sims-Walker. SJax looked rusty, so hopefully he'll shake it off in the next two weeks, but MSW didn't look like anything special. The announcers kept making excuses for him, blaming some drops on a groin injury. In truth, he was never as good as the hype machine made him out to be. He was good relative to anyone else in Jacksonville, but he wasn't the 2nd coming of Jimmy Smith or even Keenan McCardell.
• With the above mission on his mind, Sam Bradford still managed to have a few checkdowns to Danny Amendola. I really like what I'm seeing there.
• Only one, maybe two, targets for rookie TE Lance Kendricks. I'll continue to monitor this.
• The Titans seemingly had a mission of their own: show Chris Johnson they don't need him. They made it a point to run the ball with everyone and anyone. Matt Hasselbeck didn't throw much before going out with an injury.
• It may be telling that the first pass Chris Ponder made was to hyped TE Jared Cook. This does nothing to discredit the theory that rookie QBs love throwing to their TEs.

SD @ DAL

• Between this game being on national tv and every expert out there hyping Felix Jones, it's looking like I'm going to have to reach for him.
• It's clear Dez Bryant will pick up where he left off last year.
• That said, there are only so many passes to go around. What does this mean for Miles Austin and Jason Witten. Time will tell.
• Phillip Rivers was really in synch with Vincent Jackson and Antonio Gates. Oh, wait, Gates didn't play, but his understudy was targetted heavily. By proxy, that's good news for Antonio.
• Ryan Matthews scored his TD the only way he'll ever do so this season: from outside the 20 yard line. Mike Tolbert had a better game.

CIN @ NYJ

• Unlike with the Colts game, I was at least morbidly interested in the Bungles on offense. They didn't disappoint - they were pretty bad. I had to downgrade Cedric Benson because it's clear that Andy Dalton isn't going to keep the offense on the field.
• Mark Sanchez was on a mission to get in synch with Plaxico Burress and it paid dividends.
• That said, I'm really not sure if this is a good thing. Instead of a clear WR1 and WR2, there may be a 1A and 1B situation brewing and you'll never know from week to week who will come out ahead. I'd like to think Plax has the edge due to his height, but he's been out of the game since 2008.
• ps. Dustin Keller had a nice little game, too

PHI @ PIT

• Teams learned last year how to contain Mike Vick, but luckily for the Eagles, not many teams have the personnel to do so. Pittsburgh does, which led to his horrible play.
• In Week 1, Brent Celek had a great game b/c DJax and Jeremy Maclin were out. In Week 2, DJax returned and Celek had an average game. If this trend continues, he'll be invisible once Maclin returns.
• I feel I'm in no man's land with respect to PIT's WR2. Hines Ward is getting up there, but he's not out of the picture yet. I want to rank Antonio Brown higher, but I just can't right now. And still I'm hearing that it's really Emmanuel Sanders that's Hines' heir apparent.
• Ah, what does it matter? Once PIT gets a lead, they'll just run it with Rashard Mendenhall for the rest of the game.