You have to wonder how much the news of Doug Fulmer’s latest season ending injury helped dampen the players enthusiasm for a scrimmage. The takes from the reporters and coaches was that it was an average performance at best.

General scrimmage impressions:

“It was solid work. I thought there were enough game-changing plays on both sides of the ball. I was hoping for a little bit more. From the veteran standpoint, we decided to hold LaRod Stephens-Howling and Bill Stull. They both could have gone. If we would have played a game today, they both would have played. We limited LeSean McCoy. He had 11 carries, averaged six yards a carry. I was very pleased with him, except his one turnover. I’d like to say it was an outstanding day of football, but we turned the ball over. He ran good, he made guys miss. Chris Burns looked good, the returners looked good, and all the running backs. Jonathan Baldwin made three great plays. He made two by the sideline. Unfortunately, both of them were out of bounds. It’s pretty evident that we need to find a way to get him ready to go. He has a chance to help us. Andrew Taglianetti keeps showing up from a defensive standpoint. We’re going to start working him on special teams. He can really help us in that area. Overall, solid scrimmage. We didn’t get anyone really hurt today, but we have a lot of work to do.”

Coach Wannstedt kept using the word solid, which might also be interpreted as “uneventful.” There were some issues with the Center exchange, that seems to be attributed to Robb Houser getting a little too hyped.

“It’s unfortunate,” Wannstedt said. “We’ve had no problems the whole training camp. In fact, I commented that this has been the least quarterback-center exchange problems we’ve had since I’ve been here. We haven’t had them. That kind of took the wind out of everybody’s sails, including me.”

The good news is that snapping hadn’t been an issue with Houser, who looks to have a good grip on the starting job. He hasn’t spent much time snapping to Bostick, who filled in for Bill Stull with the first-team offense. And after the early jitters, Houser didn’t have any more problems.

…

Wannstedt wasn’t satisfied with the first scrimmage in general.

“I thought that, overall, it was OK,” he said. “It was solid work. I didn’t think that there were enough big plays, enough game-changing plays on both sides of the ball. I was hoping for a little bit more. …

“We have a lot of work to do. Thank God we don’t play this week.”

Frankly after the first scrimmage and only a week of practice I’d be more nervous if the coaches declared the team ready.

It also had an effect with Bill Stull sitting out the scrimmage to let the sore ribs heal a bit more.