With Coach Neuheisel away, it fell to the coordinators to lead Friday's practice. Yesterday's session was a shortened affair, with the team dressed to match (shorts). While the team was not quite as sharp, Coach Johnson expected as such due to this session following Thursday's scrimmage. His thoughts on the practice:
"It was OK," offensive coordinator Mike Johnson said. "We went through our normal routine. We worked a lot on our passing game today. I thought the tempo was OK. We didn’t want to rush the guys too much and get the tempo too high because we had the scrimmage yesterday.
"We wanted to make sure that we were efficient, make sure that we handled our protections on offense and I thought it was pretty good. I don’t think it was as sharp (as yesterday), but that was to be expected. We didn’t want to overwork them."
While the tempo was acceptable and the pass protections may have worked as hoped, the offense was a bit uneven through the duration of the afternoon. The QB's started off well, according to Gold's report, but had issues late in the session.
... But in the late period, mainly in the red zone, the passing game was completely off. It looked like a timing issue, and Johnson had some interesting things to say about why Brett Hundley is struggling with throwing behind guys. I'll have that video up tomorrow morning.
In injury news, Damien Thigpen's hamstring injury is likely to keep him out of next weekend's Spring Game, while Tony Dye, Kai Maiava and Todd Golper remain out of action.
Jon Gold has part one of a two-part feature on Joe Fauria posted on the Daily News blog. Although a day late, here is video of Coach Neuheislel's Thursday post-practice media session.
The Bruins are off today, but will return to practice on Sunday afternoon.