Lions Training Camp Notes: Looking At The First Full-Padded Practice

Note: A special edition of "Lions Training Camp Notes" focused solely on Ndamukong Suh's first day of practice will be posted in a bit.

• Jim Schwartz had this to say about Tuesday's practice, which was the first one in full pads:
  

  "I don’t care who you are, there’s something about that, whether you’re a fan, player or coach. These guys haven’t worn full pads since the Chicago game, or whatever game they were playing last. There’s something to that. It’s a little bit of an adjustment, but there’s also an excitement that comes from it. Particularly in practice where you have a couple periods that get pretty smeary. We don’t do that very often when we have live contact. It’s good to shake those cobwebs loose, so to speak."

  My coaches always called the first day of pads Christmas, and I'm sure the players felt like kids unwrapping presents when they finally got to hit some people.
• Apparently some Lions fans camped out all night in anticipation of the first day of open practice on Wednesday.
• Derrick Williams and Jonathan Hefney were dealing with cramps on Monday but practiced on Tuesday without any problems.
• DeAndre Levy missed his second straight day of practice on Tuesday.

• Both Kevin Smith and Brandon Pettigrew had knee braces on.
• Smith got Wednesday off as a "healing day."
• Chris McCosky and John Niyo have a full breakdown of Tuesday's 9-on-8 drill where eight defenders were in the box and the running backs weren't allowed to run very far to the outside.
• According to ESPN's Kevin Seifert, Tuesday's 7-on-7 drill saw Matthew Stafford complete four passes to tight ends, three to running backs and only two to wide receivers.
• Also from Seifert is that the Lions' first-team secondary this week has been Chris Houston, Jonathan Wade, Marvin White and C.C. Brown.
• Dominic Raiola is a huge fan of Kyle Vanden Bosch's intensity.
• New special teams coach Danny Crossman is all about being aggressive.
• Jim Schwartz shared his thoughts on new safety Randy Phillips:
  

  "Randy Phillips was a safety that we liked after the draft and we had brought him in for our rookie stuff and he was still coming back from a shoulder injury. He wasn’t able to practice then. We brought him back later to see where it was and we got him on the field for the team mini-camp. He did some very good things but again, he was still rehabbing and things like that and we just made it a point to follow him and to see where his progress was and he looked good to us and we wanted to get him out on the field. He’s got catching up to do but he also has a little bit of experience. Tim Walton, our secondary coach, coached at the University of Miami with him, so they speak the same language. It’ll be easy for him to get up to speed pretty quickly."

  A new face at the safety position definitely can't hurt.
• Turk McBride added a lot of weight during the offseason, and he now apparently looks more like he did when Kansas City first drafted him.
• 30 Lions alumni attended Tuesday's practice, including players like Charlie Sanders, Lem Barney, Eric Hipple, Greg Landry and Scott Kowalkowski, among others.
• Jared Allen is dedicating this season to Bob Karmelowicz, who passed away earlier this year. Karmelowicz was the Lions' defensive line coach last season.
  
• "Chip-in-ball technology" could apparently be coming to the NFL sometime in the future.