Monday practice notes

[PonyPride]

• NT Jordan Favreau, who missed Thursday's practice because he was sick, was back on the field with his teammates, raising to six the number of healthy DLs working with coach Bert Hill. Favreau worked with the first-team defensive line, flanked by DEs Szymon Czerniak and Marquis Frazier.

• ILB Cameron Rogers appeared to roll an ankle during position drills, coming up hobbling, but after walking it off for a few minutes, he returned to drills and completed the rest of practice.

• CB Sterling Moore, who hopes to get selected in next weekend's NFL Draft, was at practice Monday. He demonstrated a drill to his former teammates, and spent the rest of the session watching from the side, sometimes on a stationary bike. Moore said he was not surprised when he ran a 4.48 in the 40-yard dash during his private workout with the San Francisco 49ers last week, four months after he had surgery to tighten the tissue around his left kneecap after it popped out of place for the third time in two seasons.

• WRs coach Jeff Reinebold has talked about the improvement shown this spring by WR Jeremy Johnson, who had a strong practice Monday. Johnson made a number of impressive grabs, including several between multiple defenders, and showed off some of his athletic ability when he reached behind him to grab a screen pass, switched the ball to his other hand, reached backward with his free hand and spun around to regain his balance and take off upfield.

• Darryl Fields, working again at OLB, dropped a kickoff, and when he joined the scrum of players trying to come up with it, he came up hobbling. His discomfort was temporary, however, as he took his next turn in the rotation of kick returners.

• The four-on-one kick coverage drills run by special teams coach Frank Gansz, Jr., are designed to seal off all running lanes for the return man. It's not uncommon for a returner to break a long return for a would-be touchdown, especially when a small skill-position player is returning against four linemen, but on one return, CB Kenneth Acker split the middle of the oncoming coverage and raced upfield, completely untouched.

• After starting spring workouts at ILB, Kevin Pope is back at RB, and he showed Monday that he is more than merely a power back. On one play, he caught a quick screen pass and danced his way past three defenders before bouncing outside to the sideline, where he turned and headed upfield.

• Run of the day: backup RB Bryce Lunday made several defenders miss on one play, when he took a handoff up the middle, broke toward the right sideline and then cut back against the grain, outrunning the defense for what would have been about a 50-yard touchdown.

• Converted ILB Randall Joyner either has a knack for reading QBs' eyes or has the ability to hide behind bigger players in front of him; for at least the third time this spring, Joyner picked off a pass that hit him right between the "3" and the "0" on his jersey, as if the QB never saw him.

[GrapevineMustang]

Glad to see your notes about Johnson, Pope and especially Lunday, who seems to be one of those guys who embodies the "team above everything else" outlook.

Starting to think Joyner might be a player, too. Sounds like Coach Mason knows what he was talking about when he predicted a bright future at linebacker for him.