Jim Caldwell Addresses the Media as Detroit Lions Report

Jan 15, 2014; Detroit, MI, USA; Detroit Lions head coach Jim Caldwell speaks during a press conference at Ford Field. Mandatory Credit: Andrew Weber-USA TODAY Sports

Rookies and quarterbacks reported last week but Detroit Lions veterans starting rolling in today. Head coach Jim Caldwell addressed the media as the team gathered at the Detroit Lions training facility. Here is what he had to say.

Opening Statement: 

“It doesn’t seem like that long ago that I was standing in front of you guys, just at the end of our minicamp, but time has flown by quickly. We’re excited about being back. As you know, we started last Wednesday and had our rookies, injured vets and the quarterbacks come in. We worked three days (and) what that allowed us to do was a couple different things. One, we had the opportunity to get the rookies some pretty concentrated work – being coached in a number of different areas without having to share their reps with the veterans. (We were) trying to give them an opportunity to hear the installation of the offense, defense and kicking game one more time. They’ll start again today about seven times that they’ve actually heard it installed, and what it does is give you a pretty good indication about retention, a pretty good indication in terms of the guys that are able to get information and then be able to transfer it out on the field. We were able to put them through their paces at a good clip.

We’re very pleased with what we were able to get accomplished and also for our quarterbacks that came in. We had an opportunity to get them some good work and give them a chance to get out in front of the team. Just in terms of the installation of the offense and making certain that they have a grasp of it – going over it one more time. It’s a new system so we were able to get Matthew (Stafford) and Danny (Orlovsky) in there and Kellen (Moore),as well and do a great job in terms of the preparation. (James) Franklin is obviously a rookie, so he was included but they got good concentrated work done. We think the guys that were injured, and a little banged up, we got them in and took a look at a few guys to see how they’re doing. Got some reps out of them and made some improvements in those areas. (I’m) excited about today. We got the group in – obviously we get started this afternoon at 3 o’clock with a team meeting, and then we’ll move forward from there.

One of the things you may have noticed is a bit different, is the fact that our training camp schedule, the times adjust somewhat. We’ll have obviously a walk-through and then we’ll also have an afternoon practice. In some cases, we’ll have a walk-through in the afternoon, practice in the morning that happens once in a while. We like to kind of change things up because, obviously it gives them a little bit (of a) different time of operation in terms of when they’re going to practice. We think we can keep things fresh that way and we also have some things we do at night. We do play some night games. Our opener is at night, preseason games are played in the evening as well. But it gives them the opportunity to practice at night as well, so their body can get adjusted to it. We’re taking some of those out into the community, to get away from the facility here. Even though, it’s open here there’s a limited number of people that can come and watch us practice, so we are going to Wayne State, we’re going to Ford Field and we’ll do one night practice here. So, all of them have a little bit (of a) different theme, but we do think that our players are looking forward to interacting with the public and gives us a different venue to participate in as well. So with that being said, I’ll open it up for any questions you might have.”