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Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Last two-a-day

Sorry for nothing yesterday. Seemed to have been a problem with the blogger company.

Coming off his best practice of this training camp here at Saint Vincent College, Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Quincy Morgan apparently felt he had done enough.

He took the morning off Wednesday as the Steelers completed the first session of their last two-a-day of this training camp.

We won’t know until later on this afternoon what Morgan’s ailment was. Maybe he was told he would no longer get to line up opposite Ricardo Colclough.

Colclough picked up where he left off Tuesday afternoon as two of the team’s first four plays of red zone 9-on-7 went for touchdowns to receivers working against the beleaguered corner.

The first was a nice pass by Ben Roethlisberger to Nate Washington on the second play of the series – Deshea Townsend had picked off Roethlisberger’s first attempt, a pass to Cedrick Wilson. Colclough was a good two steps behind Washington on the pass.

The next play was another touchdown, this one a Roethlisberger pass to rookie tight end Charles Davis on a corner route. Davis was so open that it was a stretch to single out any one player who was supposed to be covering him.

Charlie Batch then came on and found rookie receiver Willie Reid working against Colclough for a score. Reid really has a chance to be something special in this league with his speed and instincts. It may not happen this season, but the kid could wind up being better than first-round pick Santonio Holmes.

Batch followed up that touchdown pass by finding tight end Isaac Smolko in the end zone working against linebacker Rian Wallace.

Batch then looked Reid’s direction again, this time rolling to his right. Reid broke off his route, stopped on a dime and came back across the end zone for a TD in front of the goal post.

Omar Jacobs was up next and he hooked up with Lee Mays at the corner of the pylon, just slipping a pass past Ike Taylor for a score. Taylor was in good position on the play, but Jacobs put the ball in a spot where only Mays could catch it.

Walter Young completed the offense’s scoring in the drill by going up over rookie Anthony Madison to pull in a touchdown pass from Shane Boyd.

It was the only highlight of the day for Young, who also dropped a pair of easily catchable passes from Jacobs later in team drills.

Linebacker Clark Haggans returned to practice after taking Tuesday off for personal reasons. In addition to Morgan, also not practicing were wide receivers Hines Ward and Isaac West and tight end Jerame Tuman.

Center Chukky Okobi looked better than anyone should expect a guy who had neck surgery last week to look. Okobi was practicing coming out of a stance during the session and even bobbed his head to the music - presumable his own rap CD – playing on his digital player.

1 comment:

Dale Lolley said...

In a word, no. They'll likely only go with two tight ends on the active roster. Davis or Smolko will make the practice squad.