Laurence Maroney is practicing but he’s still not going full speed. He’s basically standing around joking with teammates. He’s yet to partake in any drills with the rest of the running backs.

During positional drills, the quarterbacks were practicing tossing some deep fades. At the end of the drill, Reche Caldwell stepped in and threw a beautiful spiral that hit his target dead on about 40 yards down the field. Perhaps the Patriots have found their emergency quarterback for 2007.

The following notable players are missing their third consecutive day of mini-camp: Richard Seymour, Chad Jackson, Asante Samuel, David Thomas, Brandon Meriweather and Eric Alexander. As reported in an earlier post, James Sanders is practicing today.

The new player at practice has been confirmed as C.J. Jones, WR from Iowa.

There is a new receiver at practice, wearing the No. 2. We are trying to get his name from the Patriots Media Relations Department and we’ll let you know as soon as they let us know.

There is also a decline in media members at today’s practice. After a reported 70 media members were at practice yesterday, there are currently 53 present Thursday.

Stephen Gostkowski closed practice by converting six of eight field goal attempts. After Gostkowski was finished, the team ran wind sprints, putting an end to Tuesday’s mini-camp.

The Patriots are working on their silent count in the red zone. Tom Brady is taking snaps at quarterback, while all the players standing on the sidelines are yelling trying to distract him. The noise did disrupt Logan Mankins who jumped early, much to the pleasure of Mike Vrabel. Mankins had to run a lap to make up for his mistake. Shaking Brady proved to be more difficult, as he stood in and drilled a scoring strike to Randy Moss.

Eugene Wilson looks to be a little rusty in coverage. He’s been beaten on a lot on deep routes down the field and doesn’t look to have his speed back yet after suffering a hamstring injury last year.

During a 2-minute drill, Tom Brady lofted a pass down the field over the outstretched arm of Chad Scott, right into the waiting hands of Reche Caldwell. Caldwell made the tough reception while also getting both feet down in bounds, despite safety Rashad Baker bearing down on him. Caldwell is having a very solid mini-camp so far.

During a goal line passing drill, Garrett Mills outmuscled Chad Scott to haul in a touchdown reception, despite Scott having excellent coverage. On the next play, Scott and Mills again both went up and fought for this ball, only this time it was the veteran cornerback who came down with the football. After the exchange, the two players slapped hands and ran back to the huddle.