Morning Practice: August 1, 2009

Today was a good day for practice, nice and cool - could have done with out the wind though. The players were showing a lot of intensity, much more contact than is usual when they're wearing shorts, but nothing too serious. Tavaris Jackson was on the ground for a bit giving everyone a scare, but appears that everything is alright. Also on the subject of injuries, Jayme Mitchell seems to be healthy after his season ending injury last preseason, we may need him this season with Udeze officially retiring. Heath Farwell also seems to be pretty quick on his feet, the knee doesn't appear to be bothering him even the slightest.

There might be a little bit of a rivalry forming between #11 Jaymar Johnson and #22 Benny Sapp. It seems like every time Johnson gets the better of him, Sapp makes a play the next time around. Much like last year, a favorite battle to watch is McKinnie vs Allen, its just simply a clash of the Titans. Allen did get the better of McKinnie on one play, which would have resulted in a sack on Rosenfels, but other than the one play, McKinnie did a pretty good job today. However, I suppose I should mention Allen is seeing much more double teams during camp this year, Kleinsasser laid him on his back on one play.

Rice remains on a roller coaster. While I've noticed he's getting open much more often, he hasn't made enough out of some of the opportunities, failing to come down with a pair of leaping grabs. On another play, he beat the coverage by so much that he had to slow down to catch a pass from Sage, and later made a fantastic grab snatching the ball from over Winfields head. Bernard Berrian seemed to get a lot of looks today as well, having the ball thrown his way quite often. He did a good job coming down with most of them, but had one pass swatted out of his hands under incredible coverage by Marcus McCauley.

Rookie Asher Allen continues to impress me. He made quite a few plays today, sticking with his man very well and getting a few break ups, including one pass deflection that caused the defense to erupt in cheers. There was one blemish on his day, which came when rookie WR Vinny Perretta nearly juked him out of his shoes at the line of scrimmage. Erin Henderson made it up by leveling Perretta right after coming down with the catch.

John David Booty seemed a little more comfortable today, getting rid of the ball much quicker and was moving around in the pocket well. During 11 on 11's, Booty threw an absolutely ugly pass, aiming wide of an open Aundrae Allison. He made up for it quickly though, hooking up with Reynaud on what had to be one of the best plays of the day.

Adrian Peterson spent a lot of time 1 on 1 practicing with running backs coach Eric Bieniemy. I have a feeling he's going to be spending a lot more with him soon, Peterson continued his problem of not coming down with the short passes.


That's all I've got for you today, look for more in the coming days, and as always, thanks for reading.