Nate Burleson continues to impress. He made three really nice catches, including one on a poorly thrown pass to the sideline, and another pretty long one where he plucked it out of the air with his hands. Holmgren was on the receivers to grab the ball at its highest point, and Nate looked the best. He also totally burned Kelly Jennings on a go route. Hasselbeck overthrew him, but it would have been a 65-yard touchdown. Burleson did the same thing to Josh Wilson at the scrimmage.
D.J. Hackett also looked good. He made a few pretty nice catches with some tight defense. Deion Branch also caught a nice one in traffic, and Bobby Engram shielded Trufant from the ball nicely on one play and caught it in front of him. It was the only reception I saw Trufant give up.
Ben Obomanu is clearly #5 on the depth chart. He is always rotating in with the top four receivers and the rest of the starters, while everyone else mostly works with each other and the second and third team offensive line and quarterbacks. They give Engram a fair amount of time off and Obomanu rotates in. Obomanu didn’t look as good as he did at the scrimmage, but he still looked pretty solid. He was overthrown in the endzone, but almost brought it in anyway.
Logan Payne is the only one he really has to worry about. Payne makes almost all of the catches when he is in there with the others (Joe Fernandez, Jordan Kent, Robert Ortiz). Payne looked about as good as Obomanu today, but the coaching staff’s preference for Obomanu is clear from the personnel groupings.
Chris Jones wasn't in there very much, but he made two really nice catches, including a touchdown. He is probably 9th on the depth chart or 10th including Taylor. However, he was making the most of his time when he got in.
Near the start of practice, Holmgren walked over to a WR drill where they were practicing getting the ball as high as possible. He yelled something about grabbing it at its highest point right as Obomanu was going up for a pass and it caused him to mishandle it and drop it (it wasn't the best pass either). But on the second attempt he made a really nice grab up high and Holmgren praised him loudly, and then he made another nice grab coming back the other way. Payne also had a drop during the first part of that drill. And later Payne and Kent had receptions on long passes that drew applause, but they cradled the ball down low.
Tight Ends
Marcus Pollard looked really good today and he played a lot. He had a lot of catches and scored a touchdown during the redzone drill on a TE-screen from the 10 yard-line on 4th and goal. Will Heller looked like he was somewhat limited, and had his ankle taped. He split time with Leonard Stephens as the #2/3 TEs.
It was more of Joe Newton standing around with his helmet in his hand (just like during the scrimmage). He must not like wearing his helmet because a lot of the time, he is the only guy out there without it on. It is blatantly obvious that Stephens is the #3 TE. There was a drill in the offense only portion, where the QB either threw to the TE or RB. After Pollard, Stephens probably got more action than Heller. Newton was on defense the whole time.
The one pass I saw go to Newton came near the end of the practice. Cameron Jensen was on him, and Newton couldn't get any separation. The ball hit Newton, he didn't catch it, and he fell down. It was pretty pathetic. Whether Holmgren says so or not, the #3 TE job belongs to Leonard Stephens, hands down.
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