Live coverage: Practice No. 7

FOXBOROUGH — Today's a special day at Gillette Stadium because it's somebody's birthday.

Lets see if practice goes well for him.

Here we go:

• It's a little overcast this morning. A good day to get work in pads.

• Nate Solder, Matthew Slater, Cody Hollister are missing from the start of practice. While Slater and Hollister have been noticeably banged up the last few days, this is the first time Solder has been MIA this summer. On the flip side, Chris Hogan and Julian Edelman, who both appeared to be dinged at various times on Wednesday, are back. And Duron Harmon, David Jones, James O’Shaughnessy, Malcolm Mitchell and Mike Gillislee were part of a crew that went down to the practice field.

• Tom Brady was one of the first on the field this morning. When he arrived, the PA played "Birthday" by The Beatles. The crowd also offered a serenade of its own.

• Roughly 45 minutes into practice, a sizable portion of the starting offense, including Brady, Edelman and Hogan, as well as most of the starting offensive line and starting secondary, disappeared down to the lower fields, (mostly) out-of-sight of the crowd. It was almost impossible to get a sense of how things were going on the far field, but from a distance, it appeared to be a slower, less intense affair.

• On the main field, the one-on-ones between offensive and defensive linemen produced some impressive battles, with youngsters Tony Garcia, Brian Ferentz and Conor McDermott registering nice individual victories. Greg A. Bedard fave Deatrich Wise also held his own in these showdowns.

•  With few of the offensive regulars on the main field, the special teamers -- particularly kicker Stephen Gostkowski -- got some extra work in in field-goal situations.

• Austin Carr caught a pass in a goal-line drill and was rocked by a defender, but popped back up without an issue.