Practice Takeaways

By: Raven  Symone Moore

Memphis,Tenn-On Saturday, November 19th, the Memphis Blast hosted another session of off-season workouts, open to any Mid-South resident over the age of 18. Head Coach Charles Thompson is still actively recruiting players to join the team, but is inspired but what he’s seen so far from is current roster. By the end of practice, these were the three major things that stuck out to me:

Takeaways

• Brandon Fisher Is Ready to Take Over the Leadership Duties Asked of A Quarterback

Though he arrived late, Fisher came into practice as one of the more dialed in players of the group. Actually, the reason he arrived late was because he was helping transport players to practice. As soon as he stepped onto the field, he was encouraging new players and talking them through drills and plays without being asked to. He also owned up to his mistakes when running plays and didn’t blame his receivers or offensive line for a bad play.

• Depth at Skill Positions Will Play into the Blast’s Favor

At Saturday’s practice, there were multiple new players who labeled themselves as wide receivers and running backs. Their ability showed on the field and allows Coach Thompson many options when setting his starting lineup and rotational players.

• Have A Lot of Players With Size, But Conditioning of Players is Still In Question

One of Coach’s biggest points of emphasis during his practice session was conditioning. He requires that his players start practice off with four laps around a track and later involves running hills and short yardage sprints. The current Blast roster has multiple players who can create size mismatches standing over 6 feet tall and weighing north of 200 pounds, some players were noticeably winded after certain drills and it affected their performance throughout the rest of practice.