WESTFIELD, Ind. — The sun dropped by a few times throughout the afternoon, with an extended stay here and there, but the overcast sky otherwise provided a perfect backdrop for the Atlanta Falcons’ first joint practice against the Indianapolis Colts on Wednesday at their facility on the Grand Park Sports Campus.

After a brief period of warmups and intrasquad drills, the two teams mingled. Atlanta’s defense matched up with Indianapolis’ offense on Field 1 while the Falcons’ offense and Colts’ defense were on Field 2. Given the field setup, watching both at the same time was difficult, if not impossible.

Therefore, today’s camp report will spotlight the offense and Thursday’s report will focus on the defense. There was a full-team period at the end where all players shared the same field for a thud-speed scrimmage, and I will share some nuggets from that at the end.

I will also share some additional notes on the offense below, but let’s begin with the position group that caught and held my attention the longest on Wednesday: Atlanta’s offensive line.

The most newsworthy item from the group was the continuing integration of right tackle Jawaan Taylor, who had missed all of camp until he was activated from the PUP list on August 10. Taylor told reporters after practice that he’d been recovering from a clean-up knee surgery in March and that he’s “feeling a lot better now.”

Entering his eighth NFL season, Taylor could be an important newcomer for the Falcons, who have two left-handed quarterbacks vying for the starting job. As the right-side protector, Taylor will guard the blindside if either Tua Tagovailoa or Michael Penix Jr. is behind center.

“It’s always really tough, seeing your brothers out there playing ball, and you’re on the sideline rehabbing,” Taylor said. “But I just kept coming in, keeping my head down, working every day. And I had a great team, great group behind me.”

Taylor took the field with the first-team offense during the initial 11-on-11 period. To his left was the rest of Atlanta’s starting offensive line from last season, and the combination found some early success carving out run lanes for Bijan Robinson and giving Tua Tagovailoa time in the pocket.

When Taylor rotated out with the rest of the starting offensive line, rookie Ethan Onianwa was his initial replacement at right tackle. Opposite him at left tackle was Michael Jerrell, who has worked at both spots and is increasingly getting time on the left side as the Falcons continue to emphasize cross-training. There was even a snap or two where Jerrell replaced Jake Matthews at left tackle while Taylor was at right tackle.

On the offensive line, accounting for every possible combination could prove prudent if attrition takes its toll.

The best opportunity to see the skill of Atlanta’s offensive linemen came midway through practice during a period of 1-on-1 position drills. For roughly 15 minutes, the Falcons and Colts battled mano a mano.

After watching every rep closely and as objectively as possible, it appeared to me that the Falcons got the better of the Colts overall. My final tally was 20 wins for Atlanta and 17 for Indianapolis, with a couple of stalemates mixed in. I won’t list every single rep here, but I will share some overall highlights.

Sticking with Taylor, the former second-round pick won each of his reps in my book. Two of those wins came against third-year rusher Laiatu Latu, including one where he fired out of his stance and initiated the engagement, which seemingly wrong-footed the Colts defender slightly.

All-Pro guard Chris Lindstrom won his first rep against defensive tackle Colby Wooden before going up against another All-Pro in Colts defensive tackle DeForest Buckner. Earlier in the drill, Buckner had an impressive win against Matthew Bergeron, setting up a nice showdown with Lindstrom. In their head-to-head reps, Buckner’s size, length and fluidity left an impression on the Falcons’ guard.

“He’s tall and long, so he can bring the speed to power with a long arm,” Lindstrom said. “He’s got the twitch to up-and-under, and he can spin back. And he got me. It was fun. The first one, he jumped offside, showing that he was going inside on me. So I set like he was going inside after the reset, and he went out. The second time, it was fun that I knew. He thought he was going to do the first one. So, a little bit of a back-and-forth there, and it was fun.”

Dewberry had a pair of wins against defensive tackle Adetomiwa Adebawore and defensive end Michael Clemons, and he also had a nice stalemate against defensive tackle Jerry Tillery. Kyle Hinton also looked good in a pair of reps against Tillery and Adebawore.

At center, Ryan Neuzil had a strong opening rep against Grover Stewart to shut down his bull rush but was beaten later on by Wooden. Corey Levin had two reps apiece against Stewart and Derrick Nnadi, and he split against both defensive tackles. Rookie James Brockermeyer had an excellent rep against defensive tackle Cam Ball, a fellow first-year, where he engaged early and never let go. Ball got the better of him in a rematch soon to follow, but Brockermeyer also had a good win against Tillery.

Onianwa reset nicely on a rep against defensive end Durell Nchami to score his only win during the period. Similarly, Jerrell came out on top in one rep against Colts fifth-round pick George Gumbs Jr.

The final rep worth mentioning clearly illustrated the influence of offensive line coach Bill Callahan. It featured 6-foot-8, 318-pound undrafted rookie Riley Mahlman, who was lined up against Gumbs on the left side. At the snap, Gumbs set up a speed rush to the outside before quickly trying to catch Mahlman unawares and cross his face for an easy inside path to the quarterback.

To counter Gumbs’ approach, Mahlman executed something I’ve watched Callahan and the assistant line coaches drill consistently in practice. He smoothly took away the immediate threat and set up to defend the speed rush. However, while doing so, Mahlman never opened up too much or overextended himself. He stayed ready for the counter move and smothered it the instant Gumbs initiated the cross-over attempt. It was cool to see a technique practiced in Flowery Branch, Georgia, come to life in a 1-on-1 drill in Indiana.