After six consecutive days of training camp practice, it was "Sunday Funday" all around The Greenbrier practice fields. Maybe it was the lure of a long-awaited off day on Monday, but the team had productive and upbeat practice.

"It was a pretty good practice," DeAndre Hopkins said. "Offense at first, we completed all of our passes. I think we went like eight-for-eight (on the) first, second and third teams. So, it was good."

Defensive linemen were also catching passes during individual drills. The few who didn't definitely complained about the throws from the quarterback, defensive line coach Anthony Weaver.

As it turned out, the practice was important. Bill O'Brien challenged some rookie offensive and defensive linemen to catch a punt at the end of practice in exchange for something that caused all the players to cheer. Loudly.

"That's a deal for maybe getting out of some meetings tonight," O'Brien said. "It's been six straight days and I think we've had some good practices. We had one guy that struggled. We gave him a double or nothing. Then the next guy got it done. Then we had a d-lineman (Kingsley Opara) catch it, which is good."

Rookie offensive lineman Anthony Coyle also caught a punt and the players got a little extra free time on Sunday in return.

With the first preseason game approaching, O'Brien said the staff would sit down and decide how much to play starters in Thursday's game at Kansas City.

"A lot of guys have gotten good reps here in these practices," O'Brien said. "Some guys we really need to see. It's a very competitive roster. So, we're going to discuss that and we'll make some decisions sometime around Wednesday."

J.J. Watt returned to practice Sunday. He said he would like to see action in preseason at some point, having not played in a game since last October.

"Training camp practices are huge," Watt said. "The games, I'll definitely need some live reps at some point before the regular season, but that's just whatever the coaching staff wants, however many live reps they think you should see. But, we do such great work in practice, we have so many competitive reps that you don't need a ton of live reps. You just want a few just to get your feet under you."