Notes: Detroit Lions players don’t care about your crappy predictions

Training camp has arrived, and with it a non-stop stream of observations and details about what is happening on the field: who is lining up where, which players got snaps with which units, and which camp darling made a spectacular play to get on fans’ radars. Alongside the actual football coverage by attendees like our fearless leader Jeremy Reisman, metrics maven Kent Lee Platte, and world traveler Mansur Shaheen, Lions fans know the human interest and character stories are also going to roll in by the truckload.

Let’s take a brief respite from the exciting minute-to-minute scrutiny of drills going on in Allen Park, and glance around the media coverage for the softer, warm and fuzzy interviews. Various writers posted training camp stories with a focus on intangibles or mental preparation:

Matt Wenzel at mlive.com offered a look at Frank Ragnow’s experience advantage in his return from guard to center.

Carlos Monarrez at the Detroit Free Press recorded Kerryon Johnson’s take on the Game of Thrones finale and a desire to get more carries this season.

Chris Burke from The Athletic has an article (subscription required) on C.J. Anderson’s work with school kids featuring an interesting anecdote on the Detroit front office:

Mike O’Hara at the official Lions site wrote about Darius Slay’s thoughts on taking a bigger leadership role in the secondary now that Glover Quin has retired.

Kyle Meinke from mlive.com lets us know that Danny Amendola, Jarrad Davis, and the rest of the Lions don’t give a damn about what so-called experts think the team’s record will be.

Dave Birkett with the Detroit Free Press got some thoughts from veteran linebacker Christian Jones, who likes what he sees from Jahlani Tavai and believes the team has the pieces necessary to make the playoffs.

And now, on to the rest of today’s Notes:

• Chris Burke from The Athletic had what he calls a “5 pack of thoughts” in a tweet thread about the first day of Lions training camp. Among them was this thought provoker which our Kent Lee Platte agreed with:

• Somebody get this guy a discounted Suh or Ebron jersey or something:

• Jeff Ratcliffe from Pro Football Focus believes the Detroit Lions’ wide receivers have one of the five most favorable schedules from a fantasy football perspective (read: Kenny and Marv gonna go OFF).

• The winners of the helmet handoff sweepstakes are indeed getting their prizes (“winners receiving the opportunity to walk out to the practice field with a Detroit Lions player while carrying their helmet”) at training camp:

• This really is crazy: