Ready for the Real Thing
about 11 hours ago :: 2641 Views
Leon Hall is a rookie defensive back for the Cincinnati Bengals. Last season, the University of Michigan senior was a unanimous choice for the All-Big Ten Conference First Team and was a finalist for various national awards. In April, the Bengals drafted him in the first round, 18th overall. This is the third in a series of blogs that Hall will contribute to SI and SI.com during the 2007 NFL season.
The preseason is winding down, and I'm ready to go for the regular season. I couldn't have asked for a better way to open up my NFL career than on Monday Night Football, at home against one of our division rivals in the Baltimore Ravens. It's going to be a physical game and I know the crowd will be really into it, Every game counts now, and I'm sure the first game will be at an even higher level than I've ever seen, so that's exciting.
My roles on the team have become a bit more defined in the past few weeks. I've been going in pretty much on the nickel package defensively, and filling in for some starters that have been injured. But I've also been working a lot at the gunner position on special teams. I had returned punts in college at Michigan, but when I got here they started teaching me about this role, where it's basically you against two other guys. You have to beat them first, then run down the field and tackle the returner. It's pretty tough to do, but I feel like I'm getting better the more work I put in and hopefully I'll learn from my mistakes.
Everybody always asks about the whole rookie hazing and what goes on as a rookie. I think they've let me personally off the hook a little bit, but that's only since training camp. I guess it's a tradition on the last day of training camp for all of the rookies to put on a show up on stage in front of the rest of the team and the coaches. Basically, it had to be 45 minutes of comedy, and the guys kept telling me that as a first round pick it all fell on me whether or not it was funny. I thought we did pretty well. I can't get into too many of the specifics on what we did that was so funny, but I will say that I did an impersonation of Coach (Marvin) Lewis in one of our skits. Everybody seemed to like it, or at least they laughed a lot, so that was good. It was a lot of fun though.
People also always ask what your welcome-to-the-NFL moment was. For me, it was when we got to OTAs (NFL lingo for "On the field activities") back in the mini-camps. It was the first time we lined up for one-on-one drills against the receivers. And all of the veterans came out and I was just standing in line waiting for my turn. The first guy up was Chad Johnson, and rather than go against one of the vets, Chad called me out. I'm thinking he's calling me out and he wants to run a deep route, so that's what I'm anticipating. When he comes off the line, and he comes off the line much faster than I ever expected, I start going deep. The next thing I know, he stops on a dime after going full-throttle, and catches the ball on a comeback. I'm just thinking to myself, "Wow, these dudes are good, they're the truth. If he can run that fast and stop that quick."
But all jokes aside with Chad, he's been great to go up against. He's exactly the player that you see on TV and in the games all week long. He's a great receiver that wants the ball, and he works hard to get it. That's how it should be though. But he's more than just a good receiver. He's a good resource for me. He'll help me out at the end of the week and tell me about the opposing receivers we're going up against, because he's obviously studied them in the past. Really, going against him all week will give me a lot more confidence for whomever I'm up against on Sundays or Mondays all season.
And I guess the last thing I can talk about is video games, which is a big hobby of mine as you can see from these past posts. I have the new Madden, and in the last year I purchased an Xbox 360. I had always been a Playstation 2 guy before, so it's been tough getting used to the movements and player controls on the new system. The graphics are great, but I'm not having that much fun with it now because I'm not very good. I've been playing my franchise with the Bengals and I can't seem to win a game. A couple of days ago I was playing, what I guess would be the fourth game of our season, against New England. And I just got killed. I didn't even score a point, and I kept throwing interceptions and turning the ball over. The computer just picks me apart. They seem to know what defense I'm in and what offensive plays I call, because any open spots they hit them right away. I got so frustrated that I even created a player who was all 99's in the ratings to be my running back. I put him in, and I still couldn't do anything right. But give me time, and I'm sure I'll improve.
http://www.fannation.com/blogs/post/56097