ESPN NFL

BEARS' DEFENSE FEELING THE PRESSURE OF TIME (10:42 p.m. ET)
Chicago Bears defensive tackle Tommie Harris understands the fleeting nature of the NFL.

"I feel like we don't have that much time," Harris said during Chicago's training camp on Saturday. "This is our time to really do it."

Chicago's defense has seven starters who have been together since Lovie Smith became head coach in 2004, but the defense has struggled to rankings of 28th and 21st since ranking fifth when they went to Super Bowl XLI as NFC champions.

"It's rare that you have this many guys together for a long time, so you've got to get it done," Harris said.

-- The Associated Press

GATES' HEALTH HAS CHARGERS THINKING SUPER BOWL (8:35 p.m. ET)
San Diego Chargers tight end Antonio Gates isn't holding back, and he predicts his team won't either.

"Anything less than a Super Bowl championship, it doesn't exist for us," Gates said.

Among the reasons the Chargers enter the year as a Super Bowl contender is that Gates is healthy, and he's running and cutting in a manner that hasn't been seen of late.

The five-time Pro Bowler struggled in 2008 with a foot injury after a toe ailment the previous year. His production last season didn't decline dramatically, however, as he led the Chargers in receptions (60) and touchdown catches (eight).

"It feels good, a long time coming for me," Gates said Saturday at the Chargers' training camp. "Just being out there and feeling good, being able to do the things I struggled with last year, it feels special to me and it feels like a special season for me."

-- The Associated Press

CULPEPPER FOCUSED ON 2009 FOR LIONS (8:19 p.m. ET)
Daunte Culpepper knows he's in only a short-term battle with Matthew Stafford for the Detroit Lions' starting quarterback job but insists he isn't worried about anything beyond this season.

Detroit took Stafford with the top overall draft pick in April. Since then, it's been clear that he, not the 32-year-old Culpepper, is Detroit's quarterback of the future.

"I'm not thinking about anything beyond 2009 right now," Culpepper, who joined the Lions midway through the first 0-16 season in NFL history, said Saturday after the team's first training-camp practice. "I'm focused on helping this team win some games."

-- The Associated Press

SAINTS' BUSH SITS OUT, BUT NOT FOR INJURY (7:42 p.m. ET)
Reggie Bush missed his first practice of training camp, but New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton said the star running back was just resting and did not appear to have any problems with his surgically repaired left knee.

Payton said the Saints planned all along to give Bush intermittent rests during two-a-day practices "just to keep the knee from getting aggravated, so he's doing fine."

The Saturday evening practice Bush missed was the fourth practice held in the two days since Saints training camp opened Friday morning. Payton said Bush was expected back at practice Sunday afternoon.

Bush had surgery in December to repair cartilage in his left knee. On Friday, he characterized the health of the knee as "99.5 percent."

-- The Associated Press

PACKERS FANS EMBRACE RODGERS (7:11 p.m. ET)
Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers is entering his second season as a starter more comfortable, more confident and fully embraced by the fans.

Other than one teenager wearing a No. 4 New York Jets jersey, fans who showed up to watch the Green Bay Packers' first day of practice Saturday seemed solidly behind Rodgers. Last year, Brett Favre's unretirement saga split fan loyalties between the team's once and future leaders.

"I think Aaron proved himself for the fans to be able to stand behind him and give that support," running back Ryan Grant said. "But it's always nice. We rally around that support. Fans don't know how important that is."

After a somewhat rocky reception last year, Rodgers now feels like he has earned fans' support.

"I felt pretty embraced last year," Rodgers said. "I think the response at the end of the season was great. But definitely, the fans are very supportive. And in Green Bay it's a first-name basis, so they call you Aaron, they want to talk to you about football and they love it. This place is like no other place in the country to play football in."

-- The Associated Press

JETS RECEIVERS READY TO MAKE OWN NAMES (5:46 p.m. ET)
David Clowney has had enough with people saying the New York Jets have no wide receivers other than Jerricho Cotchery.

No, really, he's tired of all the doubters and naysayers who insist the Jets lack a No. 2 receiver. Clowney is so fed up, in fact, he needs to censor his thoughts.

"I can't say it over the mic," the speedy wide receiver said Saturday at training camp, laughing and shaking his head. "Write that down. I just can't say it."

Clowney is among a group of inexperienced and unproven receivers trying to win the starting spot opposite Cotchery that was vacated when Laveranues Coles was allowed to leave as a free agent.

"It's the perception and it's pretty strong out there," said Brad Smith, taking a more toned-down approach. "Everybody has a right to their own opinion."

-- The Associated Press

SINGLETARY GETS 49ERS BACK TO BASICS (5:35 p.m. ET)
Mike Singletary's old-school, focus-on-the-fundamentals approach to football showed up all over San Francisco's practice field on the first day of training camp.

The intense, no-nonsense San Francisco 49ers coach stayed in the middle of the action at all times, his little black journal and pen in hand as he surveyed the scene and stopped players to offer instruction. He leaned over, hands on knees, and at one point jumped in the huddle to talk to quarterback Alex Smith between snaps.

Singletary got after players when he thought they were lagging and -- surprisingly -- even told them to tone it down when he thought they were going a little too hard in a hitting drill for the opening practice.

The 49ers were in pads from the start, just as promised.

"We still have a long way to go," Singletary said following the initial two-hour workout that was open to some 1,500 fans. "I just want to be honest every step of the way, every practice, every drill, everything we do. I just want to make sure there's not a false sense of security about where we are. Right now we're not very good, but by the end of it we'll be where we need to be."

-- The Associated Press

PEPPERS' RETURNS HELPS, HURTS PANTHERS (5:30 p.m. ET)
Thanks to Julius Peppers changing his mind, the Carolina Panthers return all but one starter from last season's 12-4 team.

Thanks to Peppers' fat contract, they'll spend much of training camp trying to find suitable, cheap backups on both sides of the ball.

Peppers is expected to show up for the start of training camp here Sunday, ending a bizarre offseason that included his pleas to play elsewhere. The Panthers didn't blink, placed the franchise tag on him and waited him out as he skipped offseason workouts.

Peppers eventually relented and signed with Carolina, but it came at a big cost. Handcuffed by his one-year, $16.7 million deal that takes up nearly 15 percent of the salary cap, the Panthers were the only NFL team this offseason not to sign a veteran free agent from another team.

-- The Associated Press

VETERAN SAINTS GETTING OLDER (5:27 p.m. ET)
Drew Brees turned 30 this year, still in his prime, but old enough to start pondering how much time is really left for him to win it all.

"When I look at our team, we've made some great moves in free agency and that kind of thing, but we're a very veteran team, so we're definitely not getting any younger," Brees said.

The New Orleans Saints opened training camp with one of the older rosters in the NFL, with 19 players in their 30s and an average age of just under 27. Their oldest player is second-string quarterback Mark Brunell, who's 38, followed by their new long-snapper, 37-year-old Jason Kyle.

One of New Orleans' most significant moves in free agency was to bring in projected starting safety Darren Sharper, who at 33 is entering his 13th season.

-- The Associated Press

SEAHAWKS SHIFT TO SPEED (5:24 p.m. ET)
The motto for this all-new Seattle Seahawks training camp -- and season -- echoes off the walls of the team's opulent headquarters. It bounces off the ripples in Lake Washington that lap up to the edge of the practice fields.

New offensive coordinator Greg Knapp yells it incessantly, and loudly, drowning out the blaring music and catcalls coming from tipsy fans watching practices on boats anchored just offshore: "One cut and GO!"

The words define Knapp's quick-hitting running game behind a zone blocking scheme, already seared into the heads of Seahawks running backs just two days into camp. It's replacing exiled coach Mike Holmgren's analytical, pass-first offenses that ruled the last 10 years in Seattle.

"Oh, all day. All day," lead back Julius Jones said Saturday, when asked how often he hears Knapp's siren call. "When I wake up in the morning, and before I go to bed.

"He's very passionate about this scheme, and he does a really good job with it."

-- The Associated Press

WILFORK VOWS NOT TO LET CONTRACT TALK IMPACT PLAY (4:58 p.m. ET)
New England Patriots nose tackle Vince Wilfork says he won't let his contract dispute with the team affect his play on the field.

Wilfork is in the last year of a six-year contract. He says his future with the Patriots is "out of my control."

Wilfork's salary could reach about $2.2 million with incentives this season. But he's considered vastly underpaid by NFL standards.

He says the last thing he wants to do is to go onto the field upset with the situation. He says then his teammates wouldn't be able to trust him to do his job and he doesn't want to put them in that position.

Wilfork signed as a rookie out of Miami in 2004. He has started 77 of 80 regular-season games during the past five years.

-- The Associated Press

BENGALS' PICK SMITH CAN COMPETE FOR STARTING SPOT (4:30 p.m. ET)
Cincinnati Bengals coach Marvin Lewis says whenever first-round pick Andre Smith is signed and in training camp, he'll get every opportunity to win the starting spot at right tackle.

Lewis said following Saturday's morning practice in Kentucky he has no updates on Smith's contract talks.

Last year's first-round pick, linebacker Keith Rivers, was unsigned for the first 10 days of training camp before coming to an agreement. Despite missing time, he was the Bengals' starter at linebacker when they opened.

-- The Associated Press

BILLS LOOK FOR OLD SCHOBEL (4:17 p.m. ET)
Buffalo Bills defensive end Aaron Schobel admits he's getting old, but the Bills would love to just have the old Schobel back.

"It's just so good to have him," head coach Dick Jauron said. "That skill level is impossible to teach. You can't teach a guy some of the things that he does so naturally and that top pass rushers do so naturally. So it's nice to have him back on the field and working to get ready for the season."

Schobel wasn't on the field very often last year for the Bills. The former Pro Bowl pass-rushing specialist sustained a serious foot injury that limited him to just five games.

-- The Associated Press

RAMS ARE HEAVY HITTERS (3:59 p.m. ET)
Right away, Steve Spagnuolo set a hard-nosed tone. Rather than ease players into training camp, the St. Louis Rams coach had about 30 plays of tackling on the first day of two-a-days.

Since the franchise moved from the West Coast in 1995, there's seldom been any of that aside from the occasional scrimmage. The Rams' new coach comes from a different background as an assistant with the Giants and Eagles, both of which did not shy away from hitting, and said it was important to get an early gauge.

"It's a whole new staff and a lot of unknowns," Spagnuolo said. "Really, the only way to find out is to put them in those kind of situations."

-- The Associated Press

RAIDERS FACE NEW CAMP UNDER CABLE (3:51 p.m. ET)
For most of the Oakland Raiders, the first few days of training camp under coach Tom Cable are like nothing they've been through before as football players.

Quarterbacks are forbidden to pass the ball in seven-on-seven drills. They practice barking out audibles in the corner of the field while their teammates do other drills. The whistle blows almost as soon as the ball is handed off as coaches make sure each player is in the right spot. And then the process repeats itself.

"It seemed like it was weird at first when he talked about the concept, but you go through it and it's a great concept," linebacker Isaiah Ekejiuba said. "We're doing a lot of learning, get all the mistakes out the way."

Cable says there is plenty of time for hitting later in camp, in preseason games and the regular season. So for the first four days of his camp, he's focusing on the mental part of the game.

"When you hand them a set of pads and it's time to go do that, they get into that part of it rather easily. That's the way they're wired," Cable said. "Remember now, the NFL season starts now and it hopefully ends sometime in February for you. The human body can only take so many car crashes."

-- The Associated Press

REDSKINS HAVE BIG-NAME BACKUPS (3:27 p.m. ET)
Two of the most successful college quarterbacks in recent years ran onto the field on a steamy Saturday morning at Redskins Park, eager to impress the fans who have been screaming for their autographs during the first week of training camp.

They didn't get much of a chance. For the next 2 hours, 20 minutes, Colt Brennan and Chase Daniel spent a lot of time standing and watching. During the lengthy team drills at the end of practice, Daniel took all of three snaps. Brennan got maybe a dozen.

"It's definitely a big adjustment," Daniel said. "I know that I've got to get ready for those three plays. Those three plays could mean my career."

If nothing else, the Washington Redskins lead the league in high-profile, down-the-depth-chart quarterbacks. In 2007, Brennan finished third in the voting for the Heisman Trophy, one place ahead of Daniel. They shattered records and piled up victories. Brennan led Hawaii to an undefeated regular season. Daniel led Missouri to the Big 12's North Division title in 2007 and 2008 and left the school with a 30-11 record as a starter.

-- The Associated Press

SEAHAWKS STILL MISSING CURRY (2:55 p.m. ET)
Seattle Seahawks top draft choice Aaron Curry remains unsigned and absent on the second day of Seattle's training camp.

Seattle finished the first of two practices Saturday without the No. 4 overall pick.

The Seahawks are counting on Curry to start at outside linebacker.

The team and Curry's representatives continue to negotiate in what Seahawks general manager Tim Ruskell has called a "nonstop" effort.

Ruskell has said the sticking point is Curry's representatives basing their position on the $28 million guaranteed that fifth overall pick Mark Sanchez got from the New York Jets.

The Seahawks believe top quarterbacks traditionally get richer deals than players at other positions.

-- The Associated Press

COWBOYS ENJOY BEING UNDER RADAR (2:47 p.m. ET)
They're not Super Bowl favorites or HBO darlings. Nobody is waiting for the commissioner's permission to play. And the blonde who made pink jerseys a best-seller is out of the picture.

Dallas Cowboys training camp has a different feel this year, a vibe that's lacking buzz -- and expectations. That's what happens when a team misses the playoffs and is widely considered third-best in its division.

"There are a lot of good teams out there and we're not up there with the people that are being named," tight end Jason Witten said. "I think it's good for us. We aren't looking for anyone to feel sorry for us. ... I think the team is embracing that opportunity."

Some more than others.

"I'm loving it right now," receiver Patrick Crayton said. "It's a fresh start."

-- The Associated Press