Raheem Morris doesn't try to claim that every Tampa Bay Buccaneers practice is flawless. On Thursday, for instance, he took his team to task a bit after he felt like their efforts to maintain good tempo were inconsistent. Through one week of the Buccaneers' 2010 training camp, there have certainly been the usual ups and downs, the workouts dominated by one side or the other, the rookie mistakes.

The Buccaneers' two-hour field session on Friday morning, however, thrilled Morris to no end. With two high-energy gun-slinging periods in the red zone and some rather impressive two-minute work by the starting offense, Friday's practice might have been the Bucs' best since camp opened. At the very least, it was an encouraging display of the progress the team has made over one week of hard work.

The competitiveness of Friday's a.m. practice was revealed in the soundtrack on the field, provided by some of the more vocal players on both sides of the ball. One good play on defense, accompanied by a little trash-talking, seemed to inspire the offense to come back with a strike of their own. And some words in return.

"That was a really good practice," gushed Morris about an hour after his team had left the field. "The intensity of the team was great today. They came out, had a little fireworks amongst men. They were talking to each other and they were practicing well. They competed well in the red zone, they competed well in the two-minute."

The most exciting moments came during two red zone drills, one when the team was in 7-on-7 mode (no offensive or defensive lines) and one when it was a full 11-on-11. Among the standout plays was a diving touchdown catch by Arrelious Benn down the right seam; a leaping interception of a fade pass in the back corner by Aqib Talib; a fire-back fade to Kellen Winslow on the very next play that was a success; a TD catch in a tight spot by Mike Williams and a pass defensed on a sideline comebacker by E.J. Biggers.

"So many people did so many special things today," said Morris. Having Kellen out there today was good because he had the fireworks to get the offense going. He's kind of the mouthpiece for the offense. Then we have our mouthpiece for the offense in Tanard [Jackson] and also Aqib. That's always fun when you have all those guys practicing like that."

The big catch by Benn seemed to be especially pleasing to Morris, as it continued the young receiver's emergence over the last few days of camp. Fellow 2010 draftee Mike Williams has been stealing a good portion of the spotlight during camp's first week but the Bucs have high hopes that both rookies can contribute in 2010.

"Arrelious Benn is really starting to come into his own," said Morris. "You're starting to see some plays with him. He's making splash plays. It started out there on special teams, going out there as a flyer and really playing big, physical and strong. That just added confidence to his game and now the confidence is coming as far as at wideout. He's just one of those guys that wants to be better. I'm just really proud of what he's been able to do for us."

The Bucs also ran a pair of two-minute drives, emulating a situation Morris had cribbed from a Cleveland-Cincinnati game last October. With the game tied at 20-20 in the fourth quarter, the Browns got the ball back at their own 33 with 1:52 left in the game and no timeouts at their disposal. Quarterback Derek Anderson got the Browns across midfield and spiked the ball at Cincinnati's 40 to stop the clock with 27 seconds left. However, two incompletions followed and the Browns were not able to get into range for the winning field goal try. Cincinnati won in overtime.

Morris borrowed that situation and asked his top two quarterbacks to make sure the Bucs wouldn't let it go into overtime. Both starter Josh Freeman and backup Josh Johnson succeeded.

"We gave him the situation - the score was tied and he had no timeouts and he had to get us three points to win the game," said Morris. "He went right down there, drove it down. He diced us up. He went down there and got us three points and the Buccaneers won. That was great.

"I can't say enough about today's practice. Really, there were some moments in there where you had some bad-type plays but when you look at it from a head coach's perspective when Benn makes a catch in between two defenders and Kellen really runs a great route and it's a good throw, the timing and precision were there...it's just a really good practice."

The Bucs had a 70-minute special teams practice scheduled for Friday afternoon and another mid-morning session set for Saturday morning. However, it may be the second practice on Saturday night that really keeps the momentum of Friday's first practice going. That workout will be held at the stadium and will be open to the public. Morris plans to have his team put on a show, with some live drills and skills challenges. That should get the crowd engaged but it will also ramp up the useful competition that took Friday's practice to another level.

"We're going to have a bunch of fun tomorrow night," said Morris. "We've got fireworks. We're going to have great fan support. You can expect to some key matchups tomorrow. It's going to be a little fan-friendly. We'll have a little bit of the Oklahoma [Drill]. We'll have some one-on-ones with some premium matchups, winner-takes-all kind of deals. We'll have a little Jugs-shooting competition, a possible quarterback competition. We're bringing back the old school - put the table out there and let the quarterbacks put chalk on the ball and throw it at targets.

"In the meantime, in practice, when we're getting our business done we'll have live goal-line and I'm probably going to make that two-minute live now. We'll come back and have some red zone seven-on-seven. It will kind of be a similar atmosphere to what we had today with the competitive situations, and we'll add some skill challenges so you can see our players at their very best. The crowd just adds the element that we need."

**

Hometown Player Returns

Cornerback Darrell Pasco, who played his prep ball at Countryside High School in Clearwater, has signed with the Buccaneers for a second time. The Bucs made that move on Friday morning and also announced that rookie safety Matt O'Hanlon has been waived/injured.

The 6-0, 170-pound Pasco first signed with the Buccaneers on May 3 as an undrafted free agent out of Georgia Southern. He participated in the team's post-draft rookie mini-camp on a tryout contract and was one of five prospects from that camp who was subsequently signed. Pasco was later released on May 18.

Friday's moves were the first alterations the Buccaneers have made to their 80-man roster since training camp began a week prior. That early-camp roster stability in camp is a little unusual. Last year, for instance, Tampa Bay was just two days into practice before a move was made to replace guard Maurice Miller with guard Ryan Schmidt. In 2008, there were three separate roster moves on three different days during the first week of camp.

That lack of movement could be related to another usual camp accoutrement that has been pleasantly absent so far this summer: Injuries of any real significance. Morris reiterated on Thursday that the team currently has no players who have any ailments that make them worse than day-to-day.

Pasco, who listed the Buccaneers as his favorite team in his Georgia Southern bio, played two seasons at GSU after transferring from the Georgia Military College, starting as a senior last fall. In 2009, he amassed 34 tackles, two interceptions, 12 passes defensed and two fumble recoveries, one of which he returned 85 yards for a touchdown.

O'Hanlon originally joined the Buccaneers after being claimed off of waivers from the Carolina Panthers on June 21.

**

Juggling Act

It's not unusual for an NFL receiver to demand the ball, but things have been getting a little ridiculous at the end of Tampa Bay practices lately.

From the behavior of such Buc receivers as Benn, Sammie Stroughter and Micheal Spurlock - and a few running backs, as well - it appears these guys don't just want the football in their hands...they want all the footballs.

That's one explanation for a post-practice exercise that has turned into a friendly rival between about 10 of the Bucs' skill-position players. Of course, a more logical explanation could be that this drill, while unusual and often accompanied by bouts of laughter, is actually teaching the players a thing or two.

Here's how it goes: An assistant loads up the Jugs gun with a football and sets it an angle to emulate a punt. Downfield, the first return man lines up and prepares to field the football that is shot from the gun. Assuming he does so cleanly, this return man then waits for another football to be blasted his way, without letting go of the first ball he just caught. If the player catches the second ball, he then tries to catch a third while hanging on to the first two, and so on. The longer his turn goes on, the more comical it gets, as the player tries to figure out some way to haul in another punt with his arms loaded down with footballs.

After practice on Friday morning, Benn accomplished what looked like it might be impossible: He caught six punts without letting go of any of the footballs. With two footballs jammed under each arm, the fifth one was precarious enough. As the sixth one arrived, it looked like Benn had no chance, as he was using his stomach, his right arm and part of his left arm to hold on to four footballs while his left hand had the fifth one pinned to his chest. Where was the sixth ball going to go?

Just before it arrived, Benn leaned his torso back, creating a little room between the ball in his left hand and his chest. The sixth football slid right in, and stuck. Victory!

Of course, the drill isn't over until a ball hits the ground, so a seventh missile was launched immediately after the sixth catch. At this point, Benn was out of tricks. He appeared to try to bounce it back up in the air with his left leg, hacky-sack style, but missed. Still, he was more than happy to reach half a dozen.

"Today was a record," said Benn. "I was always getting five but that sixth one is hard to catch. I might have been the first one. I think me, Sammie and Spurlock have all done it."

Those three all made it to the six-ball plateau on Friday; previously the camp record had been five. It goes without saying that somebody in that group is going to look for a way to get to seven at this point. And in the meantime, they'll actually be honing their punt-catching skills. As Benn points out, the drill is a blast but also a useful teaching.

"We're having fun with it but it's also about concentrating on the ball that's coming down with the distractions of the other balls you're holding," he said. "It's a matter of staying focused, like you need to do in a game when the ball is coming down."

And if the opposing team ever punts six balls at once, the Bucs will be ready.