The first team-defense made life difficult for Mike Glennon on Saturday, intercepting him twice:
"I've said all spring, the best thing we have in the secondary is a lot of competition," O'Brien said after watching the Red (second-team offense/first-team defense) beat the White (first-team offense/second-team defense) take a 13-3 victory in the end-of-spring contest. "Those guys are fighting for jobs. Michael Glennon wasn't going to throw for 400 yards against that defense.
"It's a little bit different defense from the last few years ... because we have guys with some experience back there."
Six of Glennon's 40 attempts were either knocked down or tipped, and it was a couple of those tipped passes that were picked off. Glennon completed just over half his passes and averaged an unfortunate 4.6 yards per attempt. I was not there on Saturday, so those of you who were will have to set the current panic level. On a scale of 1 (Rivers) to 5 (Beck), where would you estimate we are right now? For calibration purposes, I note that Marcus Stone rates as a 4.23 on the scale. If I need to go to an Asheville Tourists game and beg Russell Wilson to come back, I'll do it.
Seriously, though, it's great to see the defense performing well. Hard to believe this secondary, which was atrocious just two years ago, could be the strong point of the D.
Here's the recap from the N&O, as well as a photo gallery.