The Rundown: Practice #4 - Ochocinco takes part

INJURIES

- Spikes. He cramped up again at the end of practice. S Josh Barrett sat out for a minutes but returned.
- It appears that LS Matt Katula has some sort of injury. He has yet to do much of anything in practice.

DRESS CODE

Players were in helmets, shells and shorts. Well, everyone but Ochocinco and Katula.

TOP OF THE NEWS

- WR Chad Ochocinco was on the field wearing No. 85. TE Aaron Hernandez, while in the warm-up group, was wearing shorts with No. 81 (his college number). Not confirmed yet but I’m hearing Hernandez asked for nothing in return, and just gave Ochocinco the number to welcome him to the team.
- Ochocinco was not wearing shells, strangely, yet he still competed in most team drills. He looked fine. Dropped a couple passes, but caught most of them. Ochocinco was obviously feeling his way through the offense, talking to coaches and at one point Tom Brady gave him some instruction.
- QB Ryan Mallett practiced for the first time and threw a lot of checkdowns but did show off his big arm on a few occasions. He definitely needs some work with his feet, and his motion tends to get a little long at times. Mallett nicely stepped up into the pocket facing a rush and rifled a pass to the right sideline for a completion. Then on the next pass he was almost picked off by ILB Jeff Tarpinian.
- OL Marcus Cannon was signed and on the field observing.

TOP PLAYS

- Taylor Price beat zone coverage and came back for a 35-yard touchdown pass from Jonathan Crompton. Price caught it on the ground, and it may have been reviewed in a game. But we’ll give it to him.
- WR Matthew Slater made a nice adjustment on a deep pass from Brian Hoyer that lost CB Thad Turner and ended up as a 50-yard touchdown down the right side.
- TE Lee Smith stuck his big mitt out to make a suave one-handed catch. Made it look easy.
- Ochocinco and Brady hooked up on a 25-yard post where the receiver went up into the air over Darius Butler to snag it before falling down. Nice catch.

ODDS AND ENDS