The lights may have only recently gone down on another football season, but it was back to business for Antonio Pierce and the Washington Redskins yesterday.

Pierce, the son of Cleo Burrows of Southampton, joined his teammates for a mini-camp in Virginia with new coach Steve Spurrier.

Spurrier replaced the fired Marty Schottenheimer at the end of the last term and Pierce is keen to make an impression on the new man.

The outside linebacker had an unusual season for an undrafted rookie. He started games on the weak side and the strong side, largely because of injuries to other linebackers, and he handled himself well at each position.

And his solid play at linebacker in 2001 has earned him praise for one of his fellow Redskins.

"Antonio played and came into this thing not looking like a rookie," linebacker Robert Jones told www.redskins.com. "Actually, the way he was playing, the way he approached the game, the way he practiced, the way he showed up in training camp, I thought maybe he was a guy cut from another team, a veteran.

"He did not approach the game like a rookie. He did not play like a rookie. He played hard and he studied hard.

"He didn't get drafted, but I think he got cheated that way. But he'll overcome that. He's a good football player."

Pierce said he was pleased with last year but was determined to put in even better performances this time around.

"It was a learning experience. This is a game of experience. The more years you're in it, the more experience you get, the better you get," he said.

"I study the game hard. It's a game I love and really want to do well and prove a lot of people wrong (for not being drafted).

"I want to play at the level in the NFL that I played in college. I'm going to work hard and be twice as good as I was last year."