e could work into the leg side. Forty-eight of his 74 runs came in that direction. The cover drive barely made an appearanc

HOUSTON -- Will Fuller has avoided the slow start many rookie receivers endure and leads the Houston Texans and all first-year players with 323 yards receiving.The speedy Fuller has also pitched in on special teams, taking the first punt return of his career 67 yards for a touchdown last weekend to earn AFC special teams player of the week honors.And still coach Bill OBrien is looking for more from the 22-year-old as he heads into his fifth game on Sunday at Minnesota .Hes got a long way to go, OBrien said. I know that sounds crazy to you guys, but hes got a long way to go. I mean he can improve in so many different areas.Fullers speed has always been his best quality, and it was only talked about more after he ran a blazing 4.32 40-yard dash at the NFL combine. But entering the draft, some wondered if his other skills were good enough to succeed as an NFL receiver.The 21st overall pick in this years draft quickly allayed those fears, grabbing five receptions for 107 yards and a touchdown in Houstons opener to become the first first-round pick to have a 100-yard receiving game in his debut since 1984. In Week 2, he finished with four catches for 104 yards to become the first player drafted in the first round to start his career with consecutive 100-yard receiving games.Fuller has slowed down a bit in the past two weeks, with 31 and 81 yards receiving, respectively, but that hasnt stopped people around the league from taking notice.Vikings coach Mike Zimmer was asked about the challenges Fullers speed presents.Its nerve-wracking to say the least, he said. He is a big-play receiver and hes doing a great job.The soft-spoken Fuller hates talking about himself and simply wont discuss his early success.Im just moving on, he said. We still have a long season so (theres) a lot of room for me to improve. So Im not going to just dwell on something that happened last week.Quarterback Brock Osweiler isnt surprised that Fuller is off to a great start.Will has done such a great job through the first four games because of his work ethic, Osweiler said. A lot of players leave during the summer, and he stayed here. I think that says a lot about him. I think it says a lot about him as a person.Fuller believes that building a good relationship with Osweiler has been the most important factor in how his season has gone so far.Getting on the same page as your quarterback is a big thing, he said. He has to trust you for anything to start.Fuller is a meticulous student of the game, and OBrien said he often sees Fuller jotting down notes during meetings when hes being given tips or criticism.Hes a very bright guy, very hard working guy, he said. Really understands football. Hes an instinctive player. Hes done a good job of taking care of his body ... I think the college program that he comes from, Notre Dame, trained him very well in how to practice and how to do things off the field.Fuller doesnt understand why his note-taking is a subject of conversation and shrugged his shoulders when asked about why he does it.It just helps me remember stuff, he said. When I get a tip or something, I just want to write it down so I dont forget about it.Fuller and teammate and Pro Bowl receiver DeAndre Hopkins will be challenged this week in facing a Minnesota defense that limited Odell Beckham to three receptions for a career-low 23 yards in a win over the Giants last weekend.---Online: AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org and http://twitter.com/AP-NFL Davon Reed Jersey .com) - The Edmonton Oilers and Vancouver Canucks both take aim at their first wins of the season on Saturday, as the Canucks open their home slate at Rogers Arena. Cheap Suns Jerseys Authentic . P.A. Parenteau scored early in the third period to help the Avs edge Toronto 2-1 on Tuesday night. Cory Sarich also scored for Colorado (3-0-0), which is off to its best ever start. http://www.cheapsunsjerseys.com/?tag=cheap-grant-hill-jersey . Marincin has played in two NHL games so far this season with two penalty minutes. The 21-year-old has three goals, four assists and a plus-5 rating in 24 games with the American Hockey Leagues Oklahoma City Barons this season. Charles Barkley Jersey . -- Aaron Murray threw for 408 yards and three touchdowns, ran for another score, and led No. Shaquille Harrison Jersey . Luis Suarezs double powered Liverpool to a 4-0 victory over Fulham, and Southampton easily overcame Hull 4-1 to continue the south coast clubs impressive start to the season. Liverpool and Southampton sent Chelsea down to fourth place as the west London club was held to 2-2 at home. On Friday evening, Mohammed Shami took his first Test wicket in a year, six months, and 13 days. If any wicket is worth that long a wait, one necessitated by injury, surgery, and 40 days on crutches, this was probably it.The seam was bolt upright as the ball left Shamis hand, with no hint of wobble, and the impact of seam on turf caused the ball to move away from Rajendra Chandrika. It pitched just short of a good length, not too far from off stump, climbed a few inches more than Chandrika possibly expected, and drew an instinctive jab. Outside edge taken, chance accepted, and West Indies, replying to Indias 566 for 8 declared, were 29 for 1.It was a beautiful delivery, from a bowler fully capable of bowling them, but perhaps few had really expected him to produce that particular kind of delivery.Before this Test, 48.94% of Shamis Test wickets were either bowled or leg before, and only 31.91% caught behind or in the slip cordon. Those numbers reflected the skills he was primarily known for: pace, a fullish, attacking length, and an ability to reverse the ball. He possessed a sharp bouncer too, but did not necessarily generate steep bounce from a good length or just short of it.He often got wickets for the opposite reason, with balls that skidded on, losing very little pace off the pitch, reaching the batsman quicker than expected, perhaps even a shade lower than expected, and punishing them for camping in the crease.Marlon Samuels knew all about this. Shami, on Test debut, had dismissed him twice with deliveries skidding through from that perfect length, the shortest possible length he could land on while still hitting the stumps. Samuels was caught on the crease both times, bowled for 65 in the first innings and lbw for 4 in the second.On Saturday, two-and-a-half years later, Samuels faced Shami again. He seemed to be reminding himself of those dismissals, and seemed to be a man fighting his muscle memory, a man of sluggish footwork telling himself to press forward. The result of that internal struggle was a sort of crouching shuffle across the crease, and Shami wrong-footed him twice with bouncers. Samuels got under both of them, hunching awkwardly low.Shamis 16th ball to Samuels landed on the fullish side of a good length, in the corridor. Samuels shuffled across once more, leaning forward, and aimed for a push into the covers. All he managed was a thin edge. It settled snugly in Wriddhiman Sahas gloves, and Shami had become the joint-quickest Indian fast bowler to 50 Test wickets.Once again there was movement, and once again a bit of extra bounce. The ball had brushed the edge of Samuels bat close to its shoulder. In between the Chandrika and Samuels dismissals, Shami had dismissed Darren Bravo with a not dissimilar delivery, though shorter. Three balls after sending back Samuels, he got Jermaine Blackwood to fend another awkwardly lifting ball to gully.Four wickets, all of them the result of extra bounce. This was new, and unexpected. It caused you to watch every step of his action just that little closer. Once you did that, there was one obvious change from the Shami of old. In his first couple of years of international cricket, Shami had an idiosyncratiic run to the crease, a gallop of unusually long strides.dddddddddddd A number of experts had suggested this could cause a loss of stability when he reached the crease, and had ascribed this as a reason for his tendency to bowl loose balls. Around the time of the 2015 World Cup, Shami had said he was making an effort to shorten his running strides, and had credited Shoaib Akhtar with giving him the suggestion.Now, making his Test comeback at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, Shami was sprinting in with noticeably shorter strides. The question still remained: did this have any connection with the bounce he was generating?Pondering it, Ian Bishop, the former West Indies fast bowler, suggested the bounce might have had less to do with shorter running strides than with a possible knock-on effect: a shorter delivery stride. This, he said, would give the bowler a higher point of release, and, as a consequence, the possibility of extra bounce. He took the example of Shannon Gabriel, who had troubled India with steep lift during their first innings.Before he suffered the ankle injury that cut short his 2015-16 Australia tour, Gabriels delivery stride, Bishop said, had grown progressively longer without him quite realising it, causing him to lose height at the crease.In the months following his recovery, Gabriel had worked hard to correct this. It wasnt easy to tell if Shami had also, by design or as a byproduct of his reduced running stride, shortened his delivery stride, but Bishop felt he was achieving good height at release. What also pleased him was Shamis alignment at the crease, his feet lined up to point him precisely where he wanted to bowl.It told in his line. On a pitch where bounce often seemed to be the fast bowlers only friend, Ishant Sharma may have been expected to provide the main threat, but while he did achieve steep lift, his line wasnt as close to off stump as Shamis. He did not make the batsmen play as often, and did not, as a result, force as many errors.As the rest of West Indies top order crumbled around him, Kraigg Brathwaite waged lonely resistance, his method simple and effective. Blessed with excellent judgment of line, he ignored as many deliveries as he could outside off stump, and waited patiently for straighter balls he could work into the leg side. Forty-eight of his 74 runs came in that direction. The cover drive barely made an appearance. Most of his off-side runs came square or behind square, when the bowlers dropped short.In all, Brathwaite left 53 balls. But he didnt leave with equal ease against all of Indias bowlers. He left 31 of the 67 balls he faced from Ishant, 13 out of 45 from Umesh Yadav, and only 6 out of 31 from Shami. He passed Shamis fourth-stump examination, but four of his team-mates didnt.This, in short, was high-class Test bowling: pace, movement, and that new-found bounce, all allied to an excellent length and a line that forced the batsmen to play, or think about playing. A better batting side may have made fewer mistakes, but Shami was still asking the right questions, over and over. ' ' '