Picadilly PigskinWinners and losers from preseason game one
By Stephen Sherrod
With the Monarch's first preseason game in the books we take a look at some of the perceived winners and losers from the 20-10 victory over the Patriots.
Winners:
QB Sam Darnold
Darnold finished 9 of 13 for 107 yards and a touchdown while leading the team to touchdowns on both of his drives. He showed the best command of the offense of the three QBS who played.
All the runningbacks
The Monarchs ran for a total of 192 yards in the win, including a short TD run by Jaylen Warren. Spears and Rodriguez went for 55 and 63 yards respectively while Warren contributed 44. The trio showed that they could be a solid three pronged attack with each bringing a slightly different style to the RB room.
WR Alec Pierce
With OBJ sitting out the game there was an opportunity for someone to assert themselves as WR2. Pierce only caught a pair of passes but made the most of them, picking up 43 yards and a score.
The Defense
This is a bit of a cop out obviously but the defense managed to hold to Patriots to three points and kept them under 100 yards rushing. They kept both QBs uncomfortable and recorded four sacks.
Losers:
QB Cedric Brown
We're not writing off Brown after one preseason game by any means but he did struggle. Brown complete five of ten pass attempts for 42 yards and threw a bad interception in the endzone on a ball he should have just thrown away. The offense did not flow as well with Brown in the game, obviously he ran with the perceived second team. It will be interesting to see if he gets reps with the first team next week.
QB Malik Willis
Willis got very limited snaps and held the ball way to long on a play that resulted in a strip sack and the Patriots only touchdown.
K Luke Leonard
Ka'imi Fairbairn wasn't dressed for the game and the fact that UDFA Wyatt Nugent hit two 40+ yard filed goald while Leonard only got the nod for a pair of extra points may tell us something. Wyatt also handled kickoffs.