Each Sunday, Bengals first-round draft pick Levi Jones talks about life as an NFL rookie.

I went home for the bye weekend to my hometown, Eloy, Ariz.

On Saturday night, I went to a birthday party for my 8-year-old nephew. We had cake and gave him presents.

I didn't get him any Bengals stuff. My brother was up here the week before and got him a bunch of things.

I got him some toys, some clothes.

He wears his Bengals stuff. They haven't put out a Levi Jones jersey yet, but he wears the other stuff. He wears the orange and black. All the hats I give my brother, my nephew takes and wears them.

They don't give him any grief about wearing Bengals stuff at school. It's not televised out there, so they don't really know what's going on. Plus they're young. All they know is he's got an uncle playing in the NFL, which they think is pretty cool.

My mom watches the games, though. I got her DirecTV.

She let me have it. She asked me: "What's the problem? Aren't you guys working hard in practice?"

I said, "Yup, we're working hard in practice."

She said: "Then what is it. What's the problem?"

I said: "I don't know. We try. Everything goes good during the week. It just doesn't seem to work out in the games on Sunday."

She said, "Then you got to stay focused and keep working hard."

She has higher standards for me. She knows all about offensive line play because I've played there in college.

She said: "I don't want no sacks. I don't want any false starts. I don't want to hear your name called for nothing bad."

She says that stuff to me. She knows line play.

"What happened? You let that guy get through?"

As if I need to hear all this from my mother. But she really knows what's going on.

I had a sore hamstring. It helped to rest it over the weekend, but soon as I started running again, it started tightening up. All I can do is stretch it and keep getting it rubbed up.

As told to Mark Curnutte

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