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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 third in a series of blogs that Hall will contribute to SI and SI.com during the 2007 NFL season. Through four games, Hall has 11 tackles, 2 interceptions and a forced fumble for 1-3 Cincinnati.

It's been a pretty crazy first month here in the NFL. There have been plenty of ups and downs, both personally and as a team. Personally, I've had some good highs, as I've gotten my first couple of interceptions. On the other side, I've been beaten a few times for touchdowns. But really, that's just the nature of the position and of the game.

I have high expectations for myself, so if I have any bad plays -- getting beat for a touchdown or even something small -- I get really disappointed in myself. I realize that having a perfect game is not really possible, but that's what I strive for. I've gone against some great receivers the last few weeks (Randy Moss, Braylon Edwards) and learned a lot. You have to play hard all game long. You could play however many snaps, let's say 70 in a game. And if you have 69 good ones but one bad, that bad one is the one that people will remember. So you just have to keep going, forget about it when you get beat, and keep your head up.

Another thing, now that I think about it a little more, is that it was kind of crazy to be out there on the field against Tom Brady. I mean, I can remember watching him win those Super Bowls while I was in high school and college. So just to be out on the field against a great player like that and be able to compete against him -- really try to outsmart him defensively -- was pretty cool. At moments, it was almost surreal. He's definitely the best quarterback I've seen in a long time. Of course, there are some other good ones I haven't faced yet. But he just controls the offense and the game so well. If you aren't proactive on defense, he'll pick you apart.

As a team, while we've been through some early struggles here, we just need to keep it together. We obviously have the talent to do it; it's just staying focused and staying together as a team. Things haven't really gone our way, but we need to stick to the program and keep buying into what the coaches are telling us. We've given up some big plays in the games that we've lost, so that makes a huge difference. Going into camp, the thing we wanted to focus on was eliminating those big plays, but we haven't done that yet. It's good that we have a bye week right now to sort of get away from the game, and hopefully we come back refreshed and ready to go.

We have practice this week, but on Friday I'm hoping to head back to Ann Arbor to catch the Michigan game this weekend, and hang out with a couple of my good friends back there. They have Eastern Michigan on Saturday, who isn't the greatest team. But they do run the spread offense, which the Wolverines have had trouble with so far this year. I said before the season that I thought they could win a national championship. Obviously that's probably a little unlikely now, but I do feel like they can still run through the Big Ten and win that. One of my best friends is Brandent Englemon, a safety on the team. We came in the same year, but he redshirted his freshman year. We talk all the time, via text message and phone, and he was definitely a little down after that rough start. But they're doing better now, so hopefully they can keep it up.

Other than that, I'm enjoying life in Cincinnati. I don't get a lot of free time off the field, so when I do I try to go home and have dinner with my wife and just relax. We'll occasionally watch a movie or go out to eat, but nothing too crazy. I finally got around to watching Snatch this week. Yes, it's old, but I had never seen it. And I liked it a lot. I thought it was a pretty good movie. When I get a chance to relax off the field, that's always a good thing.