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Leon Hall is a rookie defensive back for the Cincinnati Bengals. Last season, the University of Michigan senior was a unanimous choice for the All-Big Ten Conference First Team and was a finalist for various national awards. In April, the Bengals drafted him in the first round, 18^th overall. This is the second in a series of blogs that Hall will contribute to SI and SI.com during the 2007 NFL season.

It's a great feeling to have my first game experience in the NFL under my belt. Obviously it's only one game and it's the preseason, but that's more than I had last week and it's pretty comforting. It's funny how things work out sometimes, though. For my first NFL game to be against the Lions back in Detroit is an odd coincidence. I mean, I played my college ball there, and my wife Jessica's family is from Detroit, so it was great that they were able to come and watch me play and celebrate in my first game experience.

As for the game itself, I just had a lot of fun on the field. The game is a little bit faster compared to practice and team scrimmages, but I expected that. The intensity is high, and Detroit has a lot of good receivers, so that was a good test for me and for our whole defense. One of those guys, (fellow rookie) Calvin Johnson is going to be a good player in this league. He's a really big guy (6-foot-5, 230 lbs.), so you have to put yourself between him and the ball to be successful.

I've been telling people all along that it's going to help me a lot to have guys like Chad (Johnson) and T.J. (Houshmandzadeh) lining up against me every week. I know that if I can perform well against them in practice, I'll be that much more confident in the games. I mean, when you consider that we have some great receivers, along with a quarterback in Carson (Palmer) that puts the ball on the dot every time, I'm up against the best every day.

Other than the great athletes on our team, training camp hasn't been too much different from the camps I went through in college. It's still a grind with two-a-day practices and meetings and my body is certainly sore in the morning. But I've enjoyed it to this point. I'm learning a lot about the defense and the playbook, so it's been valuable experience.

While I've been working out in Georgetown for camp, Jessica has been at our new house back in Cincinnati.  I'd like to think that when I get home after camp this Thursday, the place will be totally furnished, but that would be wishful thinking. It's actually pretty crazy trying to furnish a place. I mean, I've never owned a house before, so I was thinking I could just go to the store, pick out some furniture and they'd deliver it the next week. But it takes almost two months to deliver some of this stuff, which means for now we don't have much. Luckily, the first thing we got in there was a bed and dresser and everything for the bedroom. But the funny story with the bed is that first off, it took a while to get there. So it finally arrives-box spring, mattress, everything-and the headboard and footboard are both cracked in half. The store apologized and told us they'd send a new one, but that was like a month ago and we still have nothing. So the bed is just kind of sitting there on the ground. Hopefully that gets fixed soon.

As I said before, I'm a big video game guy, and there isn't a week all year long that's like the release of Madden 08. My copy has been pre-ordered, and when I get back home after camp breaks Thursday, I'm looking forward to lying up in my bedroom and playing Madden on my Xbox 360. I'll probably try playing with the Bengals at first, but I like to just randomly pick my teams. I enjoy taking a team that might not be rated that high and just make them better. But I know that playing online against some old friends and teammates from Michigan, there will be a lot of trash talking. I know that I'm going to play with the Bengals one time and they're just going to keep throwing at my side and yelling about how I didn't make a play or whatnot. But that's the fun of video games, playing with your buddies and giving each other a hard time. I don't know if Jessica will like me playing in our bedroom though, so we'll see how that goes.

Lastly, one of the really cool things that I've experienced so far as an NFL player is being able to help out in the community with different charities. I'm doing a campaign alongside former Bengals star Anthony Munoz for National City Bank, an organization that honors breast cancer survivors. When I got into the league, my agents asked me what charitable causes I'd like to get involved in. Growing up with my mother and three sisters, it was an easy choice. Breast cancer is something that affects all women, so I just want to do what I can to help. Anthony and I did a photo shoot at the stadium in Cincinnati last Friday, and we'll be honoring thirty survivors (there are over two million in the U.S.) in a pre-game ceremony Oct. 28. Check out Bengals.com for more information and to nominate a survivor for the honor.