He just broke up a deep pass by O’Connell, as the intended receiver unintentionally knocked him down, and he nearly came up with an INT in the process.

O’Connell’s been hot and cold today. He has great zip on his passes, though a number of them have been a bit off target. Chalk it up to first-day jitters. I’m sure he’ll be fine, despite the negative-nancy pessimism of Andy Hart.

I’m not sure who has skinnier legs: Randy Moss or Shawn Crable. It’s a toss-up, amazingly.

The newest linebackers haven’t had much of a chance to impress yet. They’re working with the other defenders and the coaches on reading the offensive formation. Basically, they’re lining up with a scout offense, and at the snap, they take a few steps in the direction they’re supposed to go.

Looks like we’re about to start a special teams drill now…

PFW’s Tom Casale, who has now taken to calling himself our resident “Head Talent Scout,” tells me he likes the tryout RB wearing 32. Says he’s the best back out there, drill-wise. Also, Casale says LB Vince Redd is a diamond in the rough. Casale likes “the cut of his jibb.”

Don’t know who he is yet, but the tryout player wearing number 11, a wide receiver, made some nice catches in the morning practice, and has shown good quickness in drills so far this afternoon.

The afternoon practice got started a little later than scheduled, but it appears that every player who was here in the morning is back on the field.

Stay tuned, the guys are just stretching right now.

BenJarvus Green-Ellis produced at not one, but two, Division I schools over his college career. Yet, the draft came and went without Green-Ellis hearing his unusual name called by an NFL team.

Green-Ellis began his career at Indiana, where he had two solid seasons before transferring to Ole Miss. At Mississippi, Green-Ellis recorded back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons for the Rebels, despite playing on one of college football’s worst passing teams. In four years of college ball, Green-Ellis ran for 3,869 yards and 25 touchdowns. But even after proving himself at a high level in college, the former Ole Miss standout was forced to wait by the phone, hoping for a call when the draft had completed.

“There are some things you have no control over and the draft is one of those things,” Green-Ellis said about being passed over. “I only worry about things hat I can control, like coming out here and working hard. God blessed me by putting me here and now all I can do is go out and work hard to try and make the team better.”

At 5-10, 200 pounds, Kenny Cattouse has the frame to be a third-down pass catching back in the NFL similar to Kevin Faulk. Cattouse didn’t put up huge numbers on the ground in college but one reason for that is Troy employs a pass happy spread offense. He did make a big impact as a receiver coming out of the backfield for the Trojans. Cattouse caught 37 passes as a senior, to go along with his 824 rushing yards and 5.9 YPC average.

Nicknamed “The Moose,” Cattouse is trying to prove he belongs in the NFL, despite not being used a lot in college. Some pre-draft scouting reports even believe Cattouse could have a more productive pro career than he did at Troy because in the spread offense Cattouse was forced to share carries with quarterback Omar Haugabook.

“I really couldn’t get the ball consistently like I wanted to, the carries I needed to have big games,” Cattouse told SNY.tv. “Some games I did take advantage of when I did get the carries and I had bigger games.”

Click here to read the entire story

Here’s a quick sample of what some of the newest Patriots were saying after their first professional practice:

“It definitely has. Putting the helmet on, it’s hit me. I got a lot of work to do to be at this level, and I’m ready to work.”

~ Jerod Mayo, who said yesterday that it hadn’t hit him yet that he was an NFL player

“It is complicated [the defensive system in New England]. There are a lot of adjustments. It’s a very complex system. Just gotta go to the meetings every day and get better. I’m going to learn everything I need to know to be on the field, and the coaches to an excellent job teaching, so I’ll just come out here everyday and get better.”

~ Mayo

“I look at the Patriot logo, and there’s a lot of history there. I’m just trying to be a part of it.”

~ Shawn Crable

“I talked to Tom [Brady] yesterday and today. He came and talked to us and joked with us. He’s a good guy. He was in the training room, just got done working out. He just gave us some advice. Obviously, I’m from Michigan, so he talked to me.”

~ Crable

“It’s an honor to learn under them. You get a chance to learn under them and pick their brains and see what they know, and just buy your time till it’s your chance to play.”

~ Crable, on what it will be like to play alongside Tedy Bruschi, Mike Vrabel, Adalius Thomas, and the other Patriots veterans on  defense.

“Junior college I did some returning. I thought I’d give it a shot out here for the Patriots. Whatever the team needs, I’m gonna do it.”

~ Jonathan Wilhite, who took part in the kickoff return drill Friday morning

“It felt good, you know [making the INT]. Just trying to do my assignment on the defense.”

~ Wilhite, after picking off a Kevin O’Connell pass during one-on-one coverage drills

We’ll have more posts when the PM session gets started in about 40 minutes.

I couldn’t leave all the blogging fun to Erik, so I figured I’d fill in with some notes from another set of PFW eyes. Here goes:

–  Erik was a little too positive in his coverage of his boy Kevin O’Connell. (Notice I said his boy.) I though O’Connell really struggled throwing the ball throughout a good portion of the morning work. He threw a lot of balls with the nose seeming to dive toward the ground after it left his hand, a flight path that reminds me of how Ken Dorsey threw the ball. O’Connell also struggled in his accuracy.

– Terrence Wheatley was the most impressive player on the field. He clearly has legit 4.3 speed and is very athletic. I know he was just covering undrafted free agent and tryout guys, but just walking him move around he clearly looks the part of an athletic if undersized cornerback. I like him. It’s also interesting that both he and Bill Belichick are totally shooting down all questions about his wrist (he plays with a stainless steel rod in his right forearm.) They don’t think it’s a problem. He played with it all last season. Good enough for me.

–Matthew Slater didn’t exactly stand out for the better in the morning work. He had to do bag drills twice, fell down in his routes a few times and didn’t look great in his route running. He did have a pick-six as covering a slot receiver on defense. Belichick said in his presser that Slater will be used on both sides of the ball, at least through spring work, and we’ll see how he responds. He might be fast and athletic, but today wasn’t his best work.

–Each of the nine players in town for a tryout — including Troy RB Kenny Cattouse — play on the offensive side of the ball. With the players added on defense in the draft, there was a need with the rookie free agents and tryout guys to bring in offensive bodies (no pun intended) to balance out the practice work. I don’t know who it is at this point, but my eye was drawn to a WR wearing No. 13 in white. I thought he had decent height, ran OK routes and showed good hands in the 1-hour workout. I love falling in love with players even when I don’t know their name or one ounce about their history.

– Dante Scarnecchia had just two linemen to work with — undrafted free agents Josh Coffman and Ryan Wendell. Coffman is a 6-7, 292-pound OT from East Carolina. He seems to have really slow feet, questionable athleticism and his strength wasn’t all that impressive when working with a weighted sled. I don’t like saying bad things about guys (I really don’t!) but he struggled in the morning drills. Wendell is a 6-2, 275-pound center from Pat Hill’s Fresno State team. He looked to be a decent athlete, but he clearly would need to add weight to even be a practice squad prospect. Hill ran Belichick’s O-line development program in Cleveland, so that should help Wendell. We’ll see.

– I guess those are most of my first reactions. I’ll come up with a few more after the second workout. And be sure to check out all our Rookie Minicamp Podcasts on Patriots.com