It is a week of reflections for me. The first is that I am still nowhere near where I need to be in football. I played as badly as the Giants did today, and though my team won the game (all but one so far!), I have played very poorly every week but the first I was there. This tells me my game is very very far from being back. The lateral movement is an issue as is the field awareness. I am having a rough time tracking the ball in the air. This, something that used to be instinctual, is now my my greatest challenge.
I cannot train for something like ball tracking alone. If I can, I haven’t figured out how to do so. Some of it is math. With next week being the Vegas trip, I have two weeks to figure out my timing on breaks to the ball. I need to work on keeping my feet moving and being aware of how far I can move in the time it takes for the ball to reach the receiver. It starts with tracking that first throw. You need to count the seconds from release to reception and know your distance to the receiver. Once you know that, you know exactly how far off you can play at range to target. This is the path to interceptions.
The path to catching the ball is running good routes and tracking the ball in the air. My problem has been running disciplined routes and following through. I need to be clear with the QB on what I am doing and get very open. I’m getting open deep, but these guys haven’t even taken a shot to me downfield.
I am not close. I am maybe a month or three away from having legitimate game. It will take time. I hope they put up with me that long.