"Jason played a nice role for us last year. I saw his reps get cut into and some other guys had passed him on our depth chart – so sort of out of fairness to him. He’s a veteran player and when he dropped out of our plans, rather than leaving him another two or three weeks to be out of our plans and to get mop-up duty and things like that, we decided to give him his release and let him try and catch on with another team. He’s a good, hard worker; he’s a really tough guy. He did a nice job for us last year, but our defensive line is in a little different position than we were in than last year."
Louis Delmas and DeAndre Levy both participated in team drills this morning. Yesterday, Levy took part in individual drills and Delmas didn't practice at all.
Cornerbacks Dre Bly and Dante Wesley made their return to practice today as well.
Chris Houston missed most of the team drills today due to a tight hamstring. That left Paul Pratt and Eric King as the starting corners because Jonathan Wade is still out. Yikes.
Randy Phillips left Tuesday morning's practice early because he was dealing with the flu.
Jeff Backus was given some time off today, which is apparently a first for him.
With injuries piling up, the Lions ditched their shoulder pads halfway through this morning's practice and simply worked on specific situations.
The Lions ran the wildcat during practice today. Jim Schwartz maintains that it is merely to prepare for opposing teams that use the formation, but I definitely am intrigued by the idea of Jahvid Best running out of that formation.
Because the Lions' pass rush calls for defensive linemen to be aggressive, coaches realize that offside penalties are going to happen.
Turk McBride's girlfriend came up with the idea of buying stuffed monkeys to unify the defensive line, so she bought them and McBride hung them in the D-linemen's lockers.
"It just was something to almost unify the defensive line like we're all going through the same thing and we all feel the same way, as long as we come together as one and push through it, we can overcome anything," McBride said. "We have our ups, have our downs, and that monkey just was like we can (fight through it)."
Yeah, I don't get it either.
Andre Fluellen and Jason Hunter did some of their training this summer in gas masks. It sounds weird, but it helps build up your respiratory system by restricting oxygen.
Based on Las Vegas' expectations for wins in 2010, the Lions have the third toughest schedule in the league.
