Camp Stampede - Midday report

Howdy folks!

Thanks for all the great feedback I am getting on the Thundering Blurb show! We'll be there every week until season's end - and possibly beyond!

Let's get to the news --

Tampa Bay Buccaneers
It appears that Jeff Garcia's injury does NOT appear serious. Still, it got the mind racing - and maybe will kick something forward if they start to worry about Garcia's durability. The snag I didn't touch on earlier? Maybe favre doesn't want to play there. That's always a problem as the bucs are aware*coughJakePlummercough*.

Green Bay Packers
Favre has chartered a plane to Green Bay. I expect he will be at the practice facility tomorrow. I expect NFL Total Access to have nothing but conjecture about it. I expect to enjoy it all.... In Non-Favre news (yes the Packers have that) and lost in the Favre debacle is the hold-out of Ryan Grant. Well, Grant may want to get into camp as reports are that his back-up - second year man Brandon Jackson - is doing very, very well in camp. So well, in fact, that the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel is saying they will probably split carries when Grant ends his hold-out. Now I don't know about THAT but RB pairing has become more common so it's not impossible. But the real message here might be that the Packers might find themselves having leverage in this situation, unlike the Favre one. If Jackson is doing well, Grant - while not replaceable - certainly can find himself in less of a sure position and more likely to settle for less, or even status quo, in terms of his contract money.

Houston Texans
I love the Texans and I can't tell you why. They intrigue me. And they signed a guy who has also caught my attention in the past - former Denver RB Mike Bell. The Denver-to-Houston pipeline set up by Mike Kubiak continues. With Chris Brown already banged up, Ahman Green not looking phenomenal in camp and the rest of the running backs not locking the job up, Bell could have a shot at a starting job. Or at worst, lock up the short yardage back role.

New York Jets
As of this morning, we finally have a positive Kellen Clemens report where he actually out-performed Pennington and threw no INTs. That's big for his backers, as Clemens has thrown some ugly picks the first practices. A lot of the picks it seems (reading Erik Boland's excellent blog at Newsday.com and Rich Cimini's good work at the Daily News) have come in the 2minute drill practices and that's not good. But Clemens looked good today. All along, people have said it's not that Pennington looked better bu that Clemens looked worse. Looks like Clemens finally played to his potential. Can he keep it up?

Apparently the hit of the day according to both bloggers was during a non-contact drill (isn't it always?). Safety Kerry Rhodes absolutely decimated WR Chansi Stuckey as Stuckey went across the middle. Just laid him on his tail. During a practice where Mangini was angry because many people were lagging, Rhodes sent the message that he was here to play and everyone had better keep up.

Cimini said it and I'll echo it - the Jets need more guys liek that if they want to top their pathetic win total for last season.

That's all for now - more later -- and don't forget - The Drive Block goes live at 10pm EST/ 7pm PST! Catch me, Cecil and Sigmund Bloom as we give you the latest on the events of the day!