Good evening and happy Friday. Just left McCue after the open practice period, and will be heading back out there in a bit for player interviews. Notes are light today because we didn’t see much but here goes:
-Guys in yellow, not participating: Will Simpkins, Noah Vaughn, Davis Lane, Donovan Johnson, Dak Twitty, Titus Ivy Devon Sherwood. Not a huge change from Wednesday. Simpkins did have a boot on, though.
-Xavier Brown was in a sling and street clothes. He seemed to be in good spirits, and I heard someone call him “Coach Brown”. Looks like he’ll be out a while though.
-We had referees out there today, as well as a drone circling practice from above, and NFL scouts. The Panthers, Falcons and Saints were represented today.
-After stretching we got FG and punt team work. Will Bettridge made 37 yard attempts from both hashes, as did 34-year old walk-on Matt Ganyard, who showed some real power on his attempt.
-We saw quite a bit of punt work, and most of the team was either involved in that or watching. Sparks had some really nice punts and a few shorter ones, with none blocked. Kam Butler and other up men shouted out instructions and snap count. As for returners, Ethan Davies, Suderian Harrison, Jaden Gibson and TyLyric Coleman were back there. Coleman had the lone fumble on a booming kick, and recovered the drop with a bunch of guys around.
-Wanted to shout out Eli Wood too, as he nearly blocked a few punts off the edge, and flashed a high motor out there on the block team.
-After special teams, we saw offense work on ball security again, and defense on form tackling (hitting dummies, etc). Tony Elliott was involved again with ball security, and did a lot of hands on coaching, including with Tony Muskett.
Other observations:
-Josh Rawlings is huge. Not sure if he’s a factor or not but he looks like Jelani Woods out there.
-Freshman safety Devin Clark has a long frame too, and sort of towered over Aidan Ryan in a special teams rep.
-I forgot how much the coaches rotate and work with different groups, be it special teams or in different individual drills like ball security. I didn’t see that much rotation from other staffs here.
-I think Miles Green was DNP today too, he went to the indoor facility, though he wasn’t in yellow or anything.