Update on rookie camp?

[Andre_Johnson88]

Anyone have any updates on the rookie camp so far from this weekend?I'm very surprised that we haven't had any posts talking about the rookie camp yet!I mean when do we get reports on how it's going?

[Westside]

Check out today's Chronicle Sports Section.

[LiveForTheGame]

There was a report saying Dunta was challenged with the drills and learning the new terminology. It's good to hear- with challenges he'll get better. As long as he works hard and learns...I'll be happy. It goes the same with every player we have.

[aj.]

New stuff on Duff, Robinson and Sloan Thomas in here from the Sunday Chronic:

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/sports/2559024

[PHAROAH]

Sloan Thomas will make the team and he will work his way into 4 wr's sets by his 2nd year.

[Vinny]

I can't wait to get a look at Duff now. I watched some ND games but never really paid attention to him.

Duff's ability is intriguing to the Texans. At Copperas Cove, he ran on a high school 400-meter relay team that was second in the state and had the No. 4 time in the nation (40.58 seconds). As a junior, he scored 26 touchdowns and rushed for 2,256 yards. As a senior, he was such a marked man that he played multiple positions and scored 12 TDs.

"(Every time you touch the ball) that's an opportunity to score," Duff said. "You have to be physical, running through arm tackles and not letting the first guy bring me down, knowing I can score."

After watching film of Duff, Marciano noticed one thing.

"He never lost any yardage on punt returns," Marciano said.

That production allowed Duff to finish his college career among Notre Dame's best return men, joining the likes of recent NFL players Tim Brown and Raghib Ismail. Chronicle

[Fiddy]

It would be different for me to have a KR and PR not lose yardage

[OzzO]

The guys on 610 this morning had a quick review that Robinson was impressive, Babbin is quick and huge, and the most impressive was Lord - he could be our "steal" this year.

[Beastlyman2003]

Yes, I heard that Jammal Lord from Nebraska looked EXTREMELY fluid in his hip movements, and he picked off a few in 1-on-1 drills against other recievers. I also heard that an undrafted rookie named Starling was very impressive.

[Vinny]

Capers' Saturday Quotes

www.HoustonTexans.com

(On his overall impression of the new players) “I like what I see out of this group. When we met with them the first night, we talked about how there are a lot of players who want to be good and a lot of teams who want to be good but aren’t really sure how to be good.

“It starts with not only having the athletic ability, but also having the right attitude. I like the attitude of this group. We’ve thrown a lot of things at them and they’ve worked extremely hard and done everything we’ve asked them to do. They know the purpose of this camp is to give them a foundation to come back in another week and go to work with our veterans because things will happen at a much faster pace at that point in time.”

(On the mix of the 2004 roster) “I just know that every year we improve our depth. I think the competition has become keener every year for our team. You hope that’s the case as your team improves. Your cuts always get a little bit tougher and it makes you better when you have competition and I think we’ll have excellent competition on our football team.”

(On what the coaches are looking for) “There’s certain drills that guys can make plays in they stand out in and how quickly they pick up what you’re asking them to do. Nothing good really happens by accident so there’s a plan in everything that we do and it challenges these guys to tune in and understand the importance of all the detail. There’s tremendous detail in order to become a fundamentally sound team so they start to get exposed to that, some quicker than others, so that’s what you look for, how fast can they pick it up and bring it out on the field and use the technique that we’re asking.”

(On Toby Christensen) “He’s made a couple of plays out here in the three practices we’ve had that jump out at you. He made a great catch yesterday in a one-on-one drill. You can see he’s a competitor and when you come out here as a free agent, all you can do is do something that catches the coaches’ attention and he’s done that in a couple situations.”

(On Jason Babin) “I like his attitude. I like his work ethic. I think he’s a guy that’s going to pick things up quickly. It’s going to take patience now because he is switching positions but I think he has the capabilities of making that transition. He’s a 260-pound guy that has good spring and a good athlete for a guy that size. When you watch him drop into coverage, it’s not like you’re watching a defensive end drop into coverage.

“Basically, his whole career, he’s had his hand down and has been rushing that passer moving forward so I think he’s much more comfortable doing that than he is going backwards and coming off of the ball and so that’s normally the biggest transition so we’re trying to work on that as much as we can.

(On Charlie Anderson and Raheem Orr) “I thought today in the pass-rush drill that I saw both of them have a good rush. Now maybe they rushed the passer five or six times but there was at least once for both of them that you saw some physical tools.”

[Ibar_Harry]

What little news there is, is impressive. Hopefully, starting next week we will gain more insight into how things are going to look. There is no question that defense is Caper's comfort level. However, it appears that may be we have picked up a couple of gems offensively as well. While I'm a Berrian fan Its more because I think we have to pick up our offense as well as our defense. I'm liking what I hear about the return game and I'm getting excited about a couple of the WRers. It would be nice to have additional outside threats for the other team to worry about. Carr, if he has time, can deliver a very accurate ball. Something has been missing from our WRer chemistry and may be the new ones will help solve that problem. We will be very young, but if we remain healthy we could be a big challenge for a lot of teams this year. We had a good defense last year, but we should be a whole lot better this year with the new young players, and I believe, because of the defensive coaching changes. Not too many people are stressing the latter subject, but I think we are going to see some real big changes on the defensive side of the ball in the way we imploy our defense. I look forward to seeing all of the guys together and hopefully we will find we have a lot of that intangible chemistry that wins the big ones.

[Blake]

Good read. Thanks SteelB.

[aj.]

For you Symons fans from today's Chron:

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/printsto...sports/2560042

That's like 3 days in a row that the Chronicle has run a Texans article. Pretty amazing.

[Vinny]

Here is some more on early camp developments by Keith at HPF. Click the link for the entire piece.

The Texans made it a point to upgrade their defensive backfield this offseason. Dead last in the American Football Conference in total passing yards allowed, the team knew it needed an upgrade and an infusion of youth.

After missing out on signing free agent cornerback Antoine Winfield, the team made sure to walk away with a top college defensive back during last month’s draft. Not only did the team accomplish that goal, but they also told South Carolina’s Dunta Robinson that he would become an immediate starter at right corner, pushing an incumbent Marcus Coleman to free safety.

On paper, the pick appears to have upgraded two of the four starting positions in the secondary. Whether that plays out on the field remains to be seen.

[infantrycak]

Jason Babin learned something about an NFL playbook before he even cracked it open.

It's big.

"They give you the playbook and I said, `Man, this is the playbook?" Babin said, noting it was much bigger than the one he had at Western Michigan. "And they said, `Oh, this will be about four times as big when you come back for regular camp."

The learning process for Babin and 26 other rookies began on the field Friday when the Houston Texans opened rookie minicamp. The difference for Babin and a few teammates is that along with coach Dom Capers' thick playbook, they're also trying to figure out new positions from their college days.

Babin was a defensive end at Western Michigan, but the first-round draft pick is an outside linebacker in Capers' 3-4 set.

Capers is accustomed to training college defensive ends to be linebackers. Two lower draft picks, Charlie Anderson of Mississippi and Raheem Orr of Rutgers, were going through the same conversion as Babin.

"You have to be patient, because most of these guys making the transition have had their hand down and are used to rushing up the field, so you know that they're more skilled in rushing than they are in dropping back," Capers said. "If guys are good athletes, they'll start to get a feel for it and make the transition."

Capers and general manager Charley Casserly have a lot riding on Babin. They traded a second-, third- and fourth-round pick to AFC South rival Tennessee to get Babin, who will be expected to challenge for a starting outside linebacker job sooner rather than later.

Babin looked smooth dropping his 260-pound frame back into coverage. Then again, there are barely enough offensive players among the 27 in camp to conduct full-scale drills and no tight ends to catch passes against him.

Babin confided that some nifty footwork in practice came from personal workouts where he's been drilling himself on covering receivers.

"My expectations are just to learn as much as possible," Babin said. "I'm trying to come out here with a clean slate and an open mind and whatever they put down, I just try to make happen."

Houston's other first-round pick, cornerback Dunta Robinson, also found he had some learning to do. Where his South Carolina coaches had him backpedaling only a few yards, Texans coaches expect cornerbacks to stay with a receiver on the backpedal for much longer.

"It's like being a freshman all over again," Robinson said.

One thing Robinson won't have to adjust to much is the weather in Houston, where afternoon temperatures were in the low 80s, considered perfectly pleasant for May.

Babin, on the other hand, is coming from Kalamazoo, Mich., where it was in the low 60s Thursday.

"This is July Fourth weather in Michigan," Babin said. "I don't know if I'm looking forward to midsummer here or not. I might be a lot skinnier the next time you see me."

^Notes:@ S Glenn Earl's first pro practice got off to a rocky start. Earl, recovering from knee surgery, immediately got on a stationary bike as his new teammates hit the field. A coach who wanted him out there, too, yelled, "There's only one person in Texas who does that, and his name is Lance Armstrong." ... Because only rookies were allowed at the practice, special teams drills were shaky without a long snapper. Nate McKinney, trying to make the roster as a punter, was forced to field snaps above his head, off to the side or on the ground from a lineman pressed into duty.

Sounds like they have good attitudes. Nice job of teasing Earl.

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