Cornerback Josh Wilson, who turned his ankle in Wednesday's practice, was back at practice on Thursday, mostly in the nickel package. Kelly Jennings took care of a lot of the stuff in the straight-up defensive sets. But Wilson looked like there was not much residual effect from the twist a day before. Coincidentally, practice squad receiver Michael Bumpus seemed to get banged up on the same route that Wilson got hurt on the day before. Bumpus laid out for a pass and seemed to stretch his shoulder a bit. He lay on the ground for perhaps 30 seconds before getting up and going slowly back to the huddle.

Also, QB Matt Hasselbeck was back as well after taking Wednesday off to rest a sore body. He will start on Sunday.

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Not a ton to actually report out of practice, though there was a keen Bocce ball (spelling?) tournament going on in the locker room, as well as a shoot-the-Gatorade-bottle-in-the-trash-receptacle-from-30-feet competition happening. You had to keep an eye out or you would get your eye put out.

Julian Peterson, a native of the DC area (God bless him) said he has about 12 family members coming out for the game, all of whom are talking trash to him because they are Redskins fans. Not all 12 are staying with him. He said he has the upper hand right now because they knocked the Skins out of the playoffs last season, but they are pointing to the records this season.

I tried to get a head-start on asking Julius Jones about next week's Dallas game and his thoughts on heading back to Irving. "Gotta play Washington before we focus on Dallas," he said. End of interview. Thank you very much. Incidentally, Mike Holmgren said on Wednesday that he is staying with splitting carries between Julius and Mo Morris. I already asked Julius about that enough this year; I didn't dip into the well again.

Had an interesting conversation with Deion Branch, which will be the focus of my story for tomorrow's News Tribune. I talked with him about this dynamic: His salary goes up. He has been hurt. He sees what happened to Shaun Alexander when a similar set of circumstances occurred. What are his thoughts? He said he is not naive enough to not think about it, and realize that the organization will have some decisions to make this offseason. But he tries not to let the business side of it interfere with the football side. He is trying to produce the same way whether he is playing for a contract or not. All the receivers -- Bobby Engram, Koren Robinson, Branch -- know that there is a chance this is the last 6 games together, but they can't worry about what upstairs is thinking. Personnel is Tim Ruskell's department, catching passes is Branch's department.