Tuesday Notes: Lions Waive Gatewood, Re-Sign Smith

• The Lions placed Curtis Gatewood on the waived/injured list and re-signed linebacker Spenser Smith.  Smith is a rookie linebacker from Eastern Michigan who was released at the end of last month.
• Brandon Pettigrew returned to practice on Sunday after missing quite a few days of action.  He only took part in individual drills and wasn't going at full-speed, but the fact that he returned is good news.  The same goes for Louis Delmas, who sort of returned to practice on Monday.  Maurice Morris was also back in practice yesterday.
• Kevin Smith left practice momentarily yesterday due to a knee injury but returned shortly after.  Marquand Manuel also left practice, as he had to ice his calf.
• Dennis Northcutt hasn't practiced a lot lately due to an injured thumb.
• Bryant Johnson is starting to run again.
• Jason Hanson missed practice yesterday due to the flu.
• Casey FitzSimmons is now wearing a boot to protect his ankle.
• The Lions' offense plays well when it knows what play the defense is going to run.
• The heat index on Sunday was over 100 degrees during practice.  It was by far the hottest day of the summer so far.

(More after the jump)

• On Sunday, Jim Schwartz ended a punting drill after Aaron Brown wasn't on the field and ready to block, saying he didn't want to waste the players' time.
• Click here to check out Jim Schwartz's interview with Chris Mortensen, who was at Ford Field on Saturday.
• The Lions' official site has a funny interview with Julian Peterson and Larry Foote that essentially turned into a trash-talking session with Peterson representing MSU and Foote representing U-M.
• Drew Stanton's latest blog post talks about how football is fun again for him.
• With Roger Goodell in attendance, Schwartz spoke to the crowd during Saturday's practice at Ford Field and talked about how the he doesn't want to see the Thanksgiving game get moved.
• Goodell said Lions fans have a reason to be optimistic and that Martin Mayhew and Tom Lewand have proved themselves in the short-term.
• Don't expect Detroit to get an exemption for blackouts, as Goodell pretty much ruled out any chance of that happening, saying that it is a long-term policy.  You know what, Roger, the fact of the matter is that blackouts are going to be more common with the economy being the way it is, especially for a team like the Lions.  If they get better, chances are sellouts will happen more often, but in general, the blackout policy is stupid.  Now-a-days, most people are not going to suddenly decide to buy tickets simply because the game won't be shown on TV.  There are enough resources now-a-days for them to follow the game a different way, or they will simply just stop caring.  I know a lot of fans who did the latter last season when the blackouts started piling up, and it's understandable.  When you can't watch your favorite team, interest goes down, which is why the blackout policy really just needs to be eliminated altogether.
• Stuart Schweigert gave away a ton of stuff he was wearing to fans after Saturday's practice.
• BIGWalt2990 uploaded two videos of Gunther Cunningham from last year's Hard Knocks.  The videos are quite interesting and give us a look at just how intense Cunningham is.
• Former Lion and current Saint Dan Campbell is out for the season.