Practice Report (5/31): What we saw at OTA No. 6

* The defensive backfield made it very difficult for the offense to complete any passes during the early portion of team work. Dru Phillips got his hands on a couple of passes, knocking one pass away intended for Darius Slayton and forcing two incompletions on passes for Isaiah Hodgins. He was not the only rookie inserting himself into pass plays, with Tyler Nubin breaking up passes. Nubin has a nose for the ball and the anticipation we saw on his college tape has shown up in spring practice.

* Fellow safety Jason Pinnock was also very active, forcing a pair of incompletions. Tre Hawkins III got in the mix and knocked away a back-shoulder throw.

* Deonte Banks came up with the lone interception of practice, racing towards the sideline and undercutting a pass. The play might have been blown dead before the throw after the pass rush had the quarterback rolling to the right.

* It was not the only play that the defensive line impacted. There’s no pads or contact, so any pass rush success or failure needs to be taken with a gigantic grain of salt, but the activity up front was still impressive. There could have been sacks, or at worst pressure impacting the quarterback, from Brian Burns, Azeez Ojulari, Kayvon Thibodeaux, Boogie Basham and Dexter Lawrence. Lawrence also batted a pair of balls down at the line of scrimmage later in practice.

* In addition to the coverage and the pass rush, there were also a handful of plays where the quarterback had to hold the ball so long that the play was blown dead before the pass was thrown. From what I could tell from the sideline, it was the best overall practice of the spring for the defense, with a heavy emphasis on good play from the defensive backs.

* The offense did score some touchdowns during red zone drills. Darius Slayton broke through first with a touchdown catch near the sideline. Bryce Ford-Wheaton scored a touchdown a couple of plays later.

* The highlight of practice came from Jalin Hyatt, who leapt in the air to avoid the coverage of Deonte Banks and grabbed a pass one-handed for a touchdown. He was a couple of feet off the ground with his hand fully extended and made a clean baseball style catch. It was the best catch of 2024 from Hyatt, who was fired up after scoring the touchdown.