Had a chance to speak with a few of the guys this morning. Here's a little of what they had to say.

• Donald Brown likes taking direct snaps out of the Wildcat formation, and he's lobbying the coaches to let him throw a pass or two. "A lot of people aren't buying it," Brown said. He mentioned is 1-for-1 in his career, the pass coming when he was a senior at Red Bank (N.J.) Catholic. "It was a halfback option, and it went for a 36-yard touchdown," Brown said. "But we ended up losing the game."

• Brown said his style is similar to that of Tiki Barber. "I don't have any crazy moves, but it's enough to get the job done." All accounts are that Brown is the polar opposite of Tiki in the locker room, however. Tiki only cared about one person. Tiki. Now, he's a hard-hitting correspondent on the Today show. Saw him help prepare chicken on a segment last week.

• D.J. Hernandez was fielding questions about his great game at North Carolina when Keith Gray, listening in behind him, interrupted. "You guys want to know the real story?" Gray said. "He bullied Zach into getting him the ball because Zach is younger than he is." Whatever works.

• Zach Frazer came directly from his sign language class. Dan Ryan has the same class. Today, as part of their Happy Hands Club presentation, the two led the class in a sign language performance of Bette Midler's "The Rose." Seriously though, if the entire team and coaching staff learned sign language, wouldn't that be a huge help in calling audibles and line checks? Even if you were playing the Patriots, and Bill Belichick had filmed your walk through with a secret camera, then brought in a sign language interpreter to steal your signs, you could still mask things fairly easily.

• Tyler Lorenzen's injury is a broken fifth metatarsal on his right foot, and he had a 3.5-inch screw inserted through his foot to aid in its healing. He said if he is ready on the early end of the 6-8 week recovery period, he could play against South Florida. Worst-case scenario is a possible bowl game. Right now, he said, there's no telling when a return could happen. He'll still have a role on the team. "I think I can bring some leadership," Lorenzen said. "I make sure the guys know they can do anything, and they should believe in themselves because I believe in them. We always say if we believe in each other, we can do anything."

• Lots of good stuff from Frazer, some of which I'm saving for the paper. Here's what he said about seeing himself on film in a game situation for the first time since high school, "Some of the times are very similar, some (bad habits) like dropping my elbow, I saw that, too. But I learned a lot from what I saw. I looked at it from the coaches' perspective; they gave me positive criticism."