Jim Caldwell's quotes from Friday

Below is a look at what Detroit Lions head coach Jim Caldwell had to say on Friday. (Quotes provided by the Lions.)

On LB DeAndre Levy winning NFC Defensive Player of the Month: "There have been a lot of things, obviously one of the things that you notice and rather quickly if you watch him in practice is he prepares the way he plays. He's intense and he's focused. I was sitting in the meetings actually the other day just kind of listening to Bill Sheridan give instruction about getting prepared for this game and the questions that he has are right on. He's an expert at what he does and I think you see that sort of carry over in his play. He's around the ball if you want to know where he is and how effective he is, just watch the football, he shows up and shows up quickly. He's got skill level obviously that is extraordinary, he runs extremely well, he can shed blocks, he can certainly get to the ball a number of different ways with power and speed, and very good in pass coverage as well. He's a very unusual guy."

On WR Golden Tate's health heading into the game on Sunday: "To answer the first part of that what happened to him, you see what's on the injury report. That's basically all we'll talk about in terms of injuries. I think if he can't go, obviously we'll have other guys that'll step in and do the job. We don't anticipate that being the case, but if that does indeed happen we have guys who have been preparing, working at it, improving, and we expect them to play well."

On if he feels like the team is dealing with more hamstrings injuries than normal: "I've been around more I've been around less. That's an odd thing to say, but it's a fact. I mean it's not unusual in that sense but those things happen."

On grinding the season out after a win at home then on the road and coming back home to play: "That's the great thing about this game, it happens rather quickly, the turn around. It's great when you win, you get a chance to get focused in on another opponent. It's great when you've had a setback because it comes along quickly as well. I think our guys have been able to adjust and adapt and you have to be able to do it consistently because you have changes in location, changes in time zones, changes in terms of the dynamics of what's happening with the team from an injury standpoint, and guys returning or coming back. There are a lot of things I think that happen during the course of a week that sort of changes up how you approach different teams. That's the other thing that affects us in terms of who we're preparing for, what their strengths and weaknesses are. That's what makes our sport fascinating."

On if WR Calvin Johnson and RB Joique Bell will play this Sunday: "We'll see how it goes."

On possibly sitting Johnson down for a week to try and get him healthy: "That possibility always exists, just kind of depends on how one progresses during the course of the week. There are some times when they move forward enough where you feel that they won't have any significant setbacks and other times when you don't feel that way. You have to wait until the end of the week and react accordingly."

On how not having Johnson in practice has impacted the team: "I think it would probably be a bit more impactful if he was a first year, second year, or third year player and the quarterback with whom he's working was not familiar with him. In this particular case I think those guys have enough mileage together where I think you'll see very few effects now."

On if it's a greater challenge to prepare for a game after a win or a loss: "It depends on your team. It depends on maturity level. You can find that both are difficult, but I can tell you this, if there's one thing that man cannot stand, it's success. It's proven through history, just in terms of just watch how we as humans react to success. Often times, we don't react very well and often times you'll find that when you've had a setback, everybody is focused, everybody's clued in and everybody's listening. Whereas when you're winning sometimes it's just the opposite. I would say it's more difficult after winning than it is with a loss. Like I said, it depends on maturity level. Teams that perform well weekly, you see an even keel. You don't see a team that goes up and down. It's those up and down teams that you have difficulty with because of maturity level. That being, they win, they're sky-high and when they lose, they're certainly at the bottom of the valley. That's why we like the temperament of trying to make certain that we're never too high, never too low because it kind of keeps you away from some of the mood swings that have a real effect on your season."

On if there's any way of knowing when a team has turned the corner: "No, there's a way. It's when you're standing in front with the Lombardi Trophy."

On why the team has given up so many sacks: "Sometimes data will tell you exactly what you're looking at and sometimes it'll fool you. If you just simply look at it stat for stat, you'd come to that conclusion that maybe there was a bit of a problem. But there have been times where we've held the ball a little bit more. There have been times when we've tried to escape here or there, which has caused a sack or there may have been a time where we maybe had a breakdown. We don't have many, but I think overall I think you'll see that our efficiency will end up being somewhere probably like it was. But you also have to look at how many times we've thrown the ball in relationship to last year. It's the number of times that you throw and number of times that you're sacked within those attempts that makes a huge difference. Right now, I think you'll find that stats are all over the board. Although, I do believe that they set trends and those are the things you look at now and that we'll pay more attention to that now than we do at any other point in time because now we've had a body of work to judge it by. We don't have as many outliers, mathematically. There's either the low side or the high side, so we try to look at that. Even though not everything is algorithmic or things that you can look at the data and say, ‘This is it. Here it is. There's huge problem here, what's going on?' Sometimes it's just minute things that need to be adjusted."

On how big it would be to get T LaAdrian Waddle back this weekend: "Obviously, with a guy with his talent and experience, it'll be a help to us. There's no question about that, but I do think that it's worth noting that the two guys (Garrett Reynolds, Cornelius Lucas) that stepped in and did the job while he was gone really experienced a lot of positives along the way. There's not a guy on our staff, I think and in particular the offensive guys that work with them, that would be, and I told the team this actually this morning, we were talking about some issues and are dealing with obstacles and things, that none of us would even bat an eye if any of the three (Waddle, Reynolds, Lucas) were playing for us because they've done it now. They have the experience and they've had some success doing it as well. So, it's made us stronger actually. Often times these setbacks have a way of turning your season at a particular position into a strength and not much of a weakness and really bolster the guys that are in subordinate roles."

On Ihedigbo's fine for his hit on Jets QB Geno Smith: "I have looked at the play, yes. I do know exactly the League rules and they're there for a reason. They go by the letter of the law and they rule accordingly."

On LB Stephen Tulloch and if he's talked to him since his surgery: "I haven't spoken with him directly, but I do know that the surgery went well. They're going to have him for about a week or so and he'll be coming back on Monday or Tuesday. He's doing good."

On if Tulloch can still offer something from a leadership standpoint: "I think that sometimes it's immeasurable what he can do. He and I had a discussion before he went down about that and making certain that he was around. We try to put him to work where we could. Often times what you find in players with his kind of experience, although coaches understand all the intricacies of the game, they look at it from a different vantage point, and sometimes a player saying the exact same thing can say it in a way in which another player will understand it more clearly. So, I do think that his knowledge in passing that information on is extremely key. We try to utilize all those guys. We do not let any intellectual property in this building go to waste. We will use any and everything. I think that's key. We have this saying that, ‘A good idea has no rank.' We don't care where it comes from or who provides it. Often times you'll find that if you listen enough, sometimes those guys will tell you something that will help your entire team, not only just their particular position, but overall operation. We're interested in that. One of the reasons why that's important, well, I'll tell you a story: My dad worked in the automotive industry for a number of years. I remember around Christmas time and certain times of year he would come home and he would talk about how he had gotten a bonus. Part of the bonus was that they provided an incentive for coming up with ideas that made the company function better in his particular area of expertise. So, he's one of those guys who is always coming up with different ideas. He's got a natural inclination towards those kinds of things, so he would tell them about different kinds of things that could make it more efficient. So, from that, I kind of thought about that and then when I got into coaching I would say, ‘Hey listen, if you have any ideas lets here them. I want to hear you talk about it.' So, sometimes I would have an easy explanation as to why we can't do that because, ‘This is the reason and this ties in with this.' But every once in a while there's something that gleams. There was a book, some of you who are readers and maybe have gotten your MBA, there was a book going around the country called, ‘It's Your Ship.' It talked about, Abramson was the name of the captain of the ship, and where he came into the Navy and took over a ship that hadn't been performing very well and really changed the fortunes of this particular ship. It was entitled "It's Your Ship" because he made them feel like they had ownership to the operation of the entire ship. Also, he would listen to any and everybody. He came up with that phrase, ‘A good idea has no rank,' and I think that's kind of an important part of what we do."

On who has had the best ideas presented to him: "Well, I can put it like this in a nutshell, Peyton Manning had thousands."

On Captains for this Sunday: "Rob Sims, Jason Jones and Sam Martin."

On an example of QB Peyton Manning's ideas: "He was just a very creative guy in terms of efficiency of the offense, how it functioned and worked. He had so many different ways of dealing with pass protection issues that came up and how to handle odd fronts, things of that nature. Often times it was very easy to teach. We probably saw some of the same thing as coaches but the way in which we may have described it may have been a bit more cumbersome. Often times, he would be able to relate very unique ways in terms of dealing with some complicated issues. But, other times he would come up with something completely foreign within our framework of thinking, which a lot of these guys do."

On Lions examples of good ideas: "We've had a number of guys. It was tough out there to kind of get a feel of the wind during our kicking game and often times you saw our flags that hang on our goal post. Often times they weren't high enough, sometimes with the trees the wind is blowing but it feels like it's blowing less down on the ground, but yet up higher it's a little bit more. So you've probably noticed that on our lifts that go up higher than our goal posts, there's now a flag that is attached to it. That was one idea."

On if that idea came from a player or coach: "That was a player."