Wednesday, August 6th - Afternoon

The afternoon practice today was more or less the same as yesterday. Started out with the same drills, all four Quarterbacks and Running backs running simple drills. From there the Offense takes the first practice field and the defense takes the second. During this drill its basically just familiarity training, they only run a couple different rushing plays, perfecting blocking placement etc. Definitely was kind of funny watching Rufus Alexander lined up as a RB taking the snap from a coach.

These practices are getting much more relaxed, I'm assuming because of our first preseason game looming right around the corner. After stretching, they did some quick 11 on 11s, the first team offense taking on the second team defense. Once again, Jackson looked sharp in these drills, not missing a throw. However, I don't think he lined up against the first team Defense once the whole afternoon, which is where the real test is. Nevertheless.. heres some plays from the first set of 11 on 11s.

• The first snap, Tavaris Jackson drops back, looks left, passes deep to Sidney Rice running along the right sideline for a long TD.
• Two plays later, Jackson rolls out right and finds Rice again for a 10 yard gain
• From here on out for Jackson it was RBs & TEs all the way, with a screen pass to Peterson, a 6 yard shot to Braden Jones over the middle, a short pass to AD for 5, and finally a play action play hooking up with Shiancoe for about 12 yards.
  
• Jaymar Johnson continues to be a favorite of the other QBs when on the field. Frerotte targeted him on the first play, but the pass fell short. On the next two plays, Jaymar was the recipient of Frerotte and Booty passes, for 11 and 8 yards respectively.
  

Next up the third team offense went up against the first team defense. The interesting part however, was that Booty was under center. Bollinger saw virtually no play time in 11 on 11s, even though he was previously lined up with the 3rd team in the earlier QB/RB drills. The defense definitely showed up here:

• Booty finds Daniel Davis for a short gain up the left side
• Booty finds Darius Reynaud over the middle for about a 15 yard gain, who made a great jumping catch over Antoine Winfield. Reynaud will still have to impress the coaches more in preseason if he has any shot to make the team after having a serious case of the dropsies earlier in camp
• Booty connect with Jaymar Johnson for a (very) short gain, although if the play was full contact, Booty would have already been on the turf from Jared Allen, who seemed to almost instantly be in his face
• On Booty's last play vs the first team D, he attempted a pass to Albert Young, but Darren Sharper jumped in and swatted the ball down
• The second team defense took the field for a couple plays, nothing too spectacular to report here, the best play was about a 15 yard catch by Darius Reynaud, but it was a really poorly thrown ball by Booty, wobbling through the air.
  
• Vinny Cuircui, Derrick Pope, and Heath Farwell played as the second team defense. J Leeman, David Herron, Erin Henderson, and Rufus Alexander will all need to make a strong showing if they expect to make the roster
• Benny Sapp and Charles Gordon continue to take advantage of Marcus McCauley's absence, both of whom played on the second team

Taking a break from the 11 on 11s, they went back to focusing on special teams, this time running situational punting drills. The first punt was practicing punting from the endzone, backed up to the 2 yard line. From here they moved to the 10 yard line, the second punt sailing 61 yards to Jaymar Johnson, who had to call for a fair catch. Nothing too exciting, but Kluwe definitely showed his length strength on a number of punts, with only one "bad" one, which bounced over the fence into the bleachers.
Jaymar Johnson once again took on the PR role exclusively. Aundrae Allison and Robert Ferguson definitely are having a friendly competition on special teams, both kind of jarring at each other, pushing one another. Ferguson once again showed up, making a couple good plays when the ball was bouncing towards the endzone, receiving praise from Paul Ferraro.

They went back to 11 on 11s to wrap up practice, starting up the same way, first team offense vs second team defense. While the entire starting offensive line and Jackson would stay on the field, they would keep on switching up TEs, RBs, FBs, and WRs, I'm assuming to see who works well together. Here's a summary of the final drill

• Tavaris came out and quickly found Tapeh underneath for a short gain.
  
• On the next play, Jackson connected with Bernard Berrian, who leaped over the defender to make the catch (sorry, couldn't see who it was)
• Branden Jones is really becoming a favorite target for the QBs, who received two of Jackson's next four passes, the other two going to Ferguson and Allison
• The brought out the sticks to do some situational drills, one of which Gus Frerotte connected with Jaymar Johnson for about a 20 yard pick up on 2nd & 6.
• Booty took center to wrap it up, nothing too notable, but I did notice they tried two reverses, both to Darius Reynaud. Reynaud showed his speed on one play, picking up about 10 yards vs the first team D
• Otis Grigsby again saw the majority of the time with the 2nd team defensive line, lined up with Jayme Mitchell, Fred Evans, and Ellis Wyms. Martail Burnett saw a couple snaps in Grigsby's stead on a couple plays

That pretty much covers this afternoon practice, like I said, nothing too major going on. One thing I did notice, however, at one point during practice, Rice was noticeably limped and rubbing his ankle on the sideline, he appeared fine later.

Pictures up soon