SUGAR HILL, Ga. — Lanier High School — home of the Longhorns — played host to the Atlanta Falcons Saturday evening.

With a packed stadium of fans, the team went through nearly a full padded practice. Lightening detected in the area ended practice a little early, but there was still a lot of work to report on.

Let's get into it.

Notes and observations

(QB) Roll Call: Tua Tagovailoa seemed to be full go, running with the first team offense at every interval through 11-on-11 periods. Cooper Rush and Jack Strand rotated quarterbacking the second and third team, while Michael Penix Jr. looked on.

Through these team periods, there were some speed bumps — a fumble via a handoff between Tagovailoa and Bijan Robinson, a dropped snap — but overall Tagovailoa was protected well and had a couple good throws downfield to Drake London and Jahan Dotson.

Early in practice, the offense and defense split for a walk through, red zone install period. Tagovailoa spent that entire period with the first team.

Strand had a really nice moment during the team red zone period inside the 5 yard line. Threading the needle through a wave of defender to hit Vinny Anthony II in the back of the end zone for a touchdown.

(The rest of the team) Roll Call: Da'Shawn Hand continued to be held out after suffering a minor injury in practice last week. Fellow defensive lineman LaCale London joined him on the sideline after he, too, suffered an unknown injury during Friday's session.

Jessie Bates III — who head coach Kevin Stefanski said is working through a minor back injury — did not practice Saturday, either.

Though Divine Deablo was well involved in practice up to and through the first team period, he did come off the field after that to talk with trainers. They were checking out his left foot. He spent the remainder of the practice on the sideline. This meant that Harold Perkins Jr. and Kendal Daniels got quite the bulk of the reps at inside linebacker. Seemed that Daniels had the green dot in Deablo's absence.

Good rep, Rook: Offensive tackle Ethan Onianwa had himself (what seemed to be from my vantage point) a really solid day. He continued to get some run with the first and second team offenses, but one of the highlights of his day came in offensive line vs. defensive line one-on-ones.

Lining up against James Pearce Jr., Onianwa took on Pearce's rush with power, keeping the edge rusher locked in. This was notable seeing as in the last few practices since the pads have come on, Pearce has won more reps than he has lost working with the reserves.

That said, even in full team periods, Onianwa continued to hold his own against Pearce's rush. It was a good day from start to finish for the young tackle vying for not just a spot on this roster any longer, but perhaps, a starting spot at some point.

Play of the day: Now that he's back in the full swing of practice, fans clamored to see a glimpse of Bijan Robinson. He gave them one of the best moments of the day when he took a hand off to the left, running behind Jake Matthews and Matthew Bergeron. Matthews took on the first level while Bergeron sprung to the second level, creating a hole Robinson took advatage of. He sprung forward and took off down the sideline where the majority of fans congregated. He kept running 30 yards to the endzone.

Next man up: With Hand and London out for the time being, it allowed us a chance to see some other defensive linemen shine. And spoiler alert, they did not make things easy on the quarterbacks.

Maason Smith dominated a few reps up front. He swam past linemen on a rep for a sack before disrupting the pocket and causing an incompletion two plays later. He looked the part of disruptive defender Saturday.

Other guys got involved, too: Carlos Allen Jr. had (what I would consider) a sack, Devonnsha Maxwell blew up the final play of the goal line team period and Samson Ebukam continued to show flashes of attack off the edge.