Saturday, July 29th (5-7 PM practice)
The second practice of the day was a shoulder pads and shorts practice so there wasn't quite the intensity of the first practice. To add to the problem, Parcells held most of the practice on the field opposite of the fans so it was hard to get a good look at the action, especially when they went to 7-on-7 drills and 11-on-11. It also kept the fans from getting excited.
For the first part of practice they did skeleton formations, and it was mainly about recognizing different formations and what to do when guys go in motion, etc. It was a slow, methodical teaching segment. During a large portion of it Terrell Owens threw the ball back and forth with Sam Hurd on the sidelines.
Both Flozell Adams and Marcus Spears were at practice with Spears' knee wrapped in a bandage. Flozell spent most of the practice in slow jogs with a trainer and working on other various drills at a slow speed, but he did manage to work up quite a sweat. I can tell you his jogs didn't look comfortable so I'm not sure how close he is to suiting up.
For the first half of practice P Mat McBriar and PK Shaun Suisham spent the whole time talking to each other and working on some drills every once in a while, while Mike Vanderjagt and LS L.P. Ladouceur talked to each other. The special teams guys really have no interaction with the rest of the team and spend their time talking to each other. Eventually McBriar did some punting while Suisham and Vanderjagt shagged the punts.
From what I could tell, it looks like Kenyon Coleman is working with the first team in the absence of Marcus Spears. Greg Ellis spent a lot of time in drills and in 11-on-11 working as a stand-up LB on the strong side. At one point, at the break in the middle of practice - right after Bobby Carpenter delivered the water to Parcells - Ellis was called over to the middle of the field by Parcells. The two stood together, with no one else around and had a conversation that lasted maybe 2-3 minutes. I was too far away to get an accurate read on facial expressions or body language.
The running backs ran patterns against the LBers right in front of where I was sitting. JJ beat Al Singleton for a catch, then D-Ware made an INT on a pass to Polite. MB3 beat Rocky Boiman for a catch, then Kevin Burnett made a good play on Keylon Kincade. Tyson Thompson cooked Bobby Carpenter, and JJ beat John Saldi. Polite beat Singleton but dropped the ball and MB3 beat D-Ware long and made a great over the shoulder fingertip catch. MB3 runs great routes and has great hands, he's should be a killer asset on 3rd down. Burnett got beat by Demetrius Summers, Carpenter then locked down Tyson Thompson. JJ abused Junior Glymph. MB3 came up again and beat Singleton. Burnett got physical with Tyson Thompson and stopped the play. On the final one Carpenter shut down Polite.
They ran some 11-on-11 on the opposite field so I couldn't tell much of what was going on, but at one point the 2nd-team offense made a mistake and Parcells made them all run to the other field and back.
The punting unit ran some kicks and Skyler Green, Terence Newman and I think Jamiaca Rector were catching them.
They finished off with some more 11-on-11 and Terrell Owens once again scored on a long bomb as he got behind Anthony Henry and Keith Davis. Drew Henson had a couple of terrible passes during that drill.
They finished with goal line drills again, and Owens caught a TD during this drill, too. After practice a lot of the guys signed autographs but Bobby Carpenter and Patrick Crayton signed for a long time. Kudos to both those guys. In fact Crayton signed on one side of the field then went to the other end to sign more. They had to finally pull him away and send him to the locker room.
That's it until tomorrow. And yes, Burnett has looked pretty good so far, I'm encouraged. Not so encouraged by the way Flozell was moving. I'll have some more pictures posted later.