| June 2, 2022 LIONS HEAD COACH DAN CAMPBELL OTA #5 QUOTE SHEET Opening Statement: “I don’t really have anything new to speak of. This will be OTA No. 5, so we’ll finish up the week tomorrow. We’re baby steps right now. We progress a little bit every day, get a little bit better, and that’s kind of where we’re at.” On what the focus is during this week of practice and if the team will focus on situational work again: “We’ll have another situation at the end of practice – rather, the end of team again, just like we did last week. That was the first day that we have done that last week, and then we’ve done it every day since. We kind of started it there and that was the plan. Every day, we’ll end the period with something situationally – two-minute, end-of-game, end-of-half, red zone once we get to red zone. So yeah, we’ll do that again.” On how encouraged he is with the rehab process for Lions CB Jeff Okudah: “Yeah, well I would say this, I’m very encouraged. We know the surgery went well and just the rehab process. Like, I really feel good about where he’s come and where the injury’s at. I feel like he’s right where he needs to be. I would say in some regards, that’s the least of my concerns, is the Achilles, and that’s a good thing.” On what he’s learned about the medical advances for players in this era compared to when he played, especially with the Achilles tendon being a traditionally challenging injury to overcome: “It’s amazing. There’s so many things that it’s fascinating to see where medicine has come, just even since I played, to your point. And then it’s also, you step back sometimes and you’re like, ‘You mean we haven’t advanced that far on this?’ You know? But yes, the Achilles, my gosh, it was considered a career-ender. And now, you see some guys that are back in five months. You saw what happened with the Rams last year and it is, it’s amazing. That’s a good thing, that’s a good sign (that) guys can bounce back from that. And I think, honestly, I think almost the scary thing with some of those sometimes is, ‘Does it really take?’ Sometimes, depending on if it’s a cadaver, does your body take it? Does it reject it? If you’re repairing your own tissue, is there enough there? Did you rehab it properly? Did you push it too much early? If your body accepts it and you give it time to heal, you ought to be pretty good. I’m not a doctor either, by the way.” On how much the team focuses on the mental aspect for Lions CB Jeff Okudah recovering from his injury rather than just focusing on the physical: “That’s, for him, that’s the biggest thing right now. We’re not worried about Jeff’s movement skills. Like, he’s going to be able to move. You watch him, with his footwork and the things that he’s doing, he can do all that. That is real important right now, is just continuing his growth mentally and him being able to get the walk-through reps and just to get the film study. Those things are big for him right now. So, it’s good to have him here, to have him available to do that. When the time’s right, to go full speed when we get him in camp, he’ll be ready.” On how Lions CB Jeff Okudah stayed engaged and positive despite his injury last year: “I thought he did a good job. Look, that’s not easy. That’s not easy to do when he really had progressed and worked himself through camp and got a little bit better. And really, before the injury, he made a couple of plays before that to where he bounced back in the game and then that happens, and that’s not an easy thing to do. And then he was hurt the year prior, but he did, he got it fixed. He attacked the surgery, the rehab, he was up here plenty. We saw a lot of him, he wanted to be around, so he’d be up here watching tape with the guys, be in meetings. Sometimes he’d come out to practice or scoot out there, and so he was still engaged and wanted to be around. Look, he did a pretty good job with it. There again, it’s not easy, it’s a hard thing to do, but it’s better than just totally disengaging and being away from it and I don’t think that’s great for you either.” On if he has any more clarity on if he or Lions Offensive Coordinator Ben Johnson will call plays this season: “No. I’m really not. To be honest with you, I think it will be hard to make that decision until the season’s almost here. I’m just going to let it go as it goes and I want to be able to coach the team right now and let him handle the offense. That way, I can keep my eyes on the players and what we’re doing on offense, defense and special teams. So, that’s what I’m trying to focus on right now and we’ll just kind of take it as it comes.”On what he needs to see out of Lions Offensive Coordinator Ben Johnson to convince him he is the right coach to call plays: “I would say this, the first preseason game, if we put up 85 points, I’m going to name him right there. I’m going to walk off the field – 84 (points) might do it too. Look, I’m really not even worried about it right now to be honest with you. I just want to take it as it comes and see how he goes with it and see how he handles running the offense, doing what I need to have done on my end and kind of my viewpoint and see how the quarterbacks are and just everything, and then go from there. I think you guys know this, I’m a gut guy. So, I’m going to trust my gut to make that decision when the time’s right.” On if he sees an increased level of competition with the roster so far: “The competition’s better right now – yes. I would say that I do know from a year ago to where we’re at now, we’re better at what we’re doing, the energy’s better, the competition’s better. Now, what’s still hard this time of year is you can’t push it like you want to. The rules are set in such a way to where it can’t be competitive to an extent. The physical side of the game, we can’t practice that way until you get into training camp, pads, all that stuff. So right now, it’s got to be much more finesse in your movement skills and those things. Inside of those parameters, we try to make it as competitive as possible, but to what you asked, yes, it is. It’s better.” On what he saw in Lions CB Ifeatu Melifonwu’s skillset that led to him playing safety this spring: “Well, he’s got length and he’s got some range and ball skills. He’s a smart guy, so he’s got a pretty good grasp of the defense. Now, he needs experience like all of the young guys do. But when you just talk about the X’s and O’s and what we’re trying to get done, and you’re talking before you get out on the field, he’s got a real good grasp, and he does have some instincts about him. It was just something we felt like, ‘Let’s give this guy a look.’ If we don’t do it now, you may not end up doing it. The more that we can figure out about our players, the better off we are. I think that only helps us. It’s just like we talked about with Will (Harris) – the more guys you have that have versatility, flexibility inside your scheme, man, it really helps you. It helps you a ton. We’re giving it a go and look, he’s open-minded to it. He’s been great. He’s the first one that will tell you – he’s all for it. He’s excited about it, but he also wants to make sure he’s still getting his corner reps too, which we’ve done both with.” On if the team sees the potential to flip any players from one side of the line of scrimmage to the other in a position change: “I wouldn’t say. Right now, no. I wouldn’t say that right now. Of course, it’s still early, so we’ll see where it goes.” On if the offense has a different philosophy from last year: “No. I would probably say more style than anything is going to be much more what you saw the back-half of the year. The difference will be verbiage and the ability to change our tempo. Those would be the big things. But we’re still about running the football, play-action pass, and we hang our hat on that stuff. But other than what I just told you, that will be the change.” On how far Lions TE T.J. Hockenson is away from reaching his ceiling as a player: “Here’s the beauty of Hockenson, and I’ve said this before, he’s a guy who’s a willing blocker and has the ability to win a one-on-one matchup in the pass game. So, when you have that ability and you’re willing to get in there and mix it up in the run game, that’s a good thing. Those guys aren’t always easy to find. He’ll tell you that too, that he’s still got room to grow even in there, in the run-blocking for us. I think he takes that next step on top of continuing to improve in the pass game. But yeah, I think he still has more room to grow.” On if Lions TE T.J. Hockenson has the ability to become one of the NFL’s big-play tight ends: “Look, here’s the thing – I look at it as what are we asking him to do, and can he win? When we ask him to win, can he win? Because I think sometimes, when you start thinking about (Travis) Kelce and (Darren) Waller and Kyle Pitts, for a long time, some of those guys are ‘the’ showcase guy. I think what we want is we want T.J. to just go out and win and do what he does (on) third down, criticals, when you need it, when your time’s called because we’ve got (Amon-Ra) St. Brown, we’ve got (DJ) Chark, (Jameson) Williams will come along. We’ve got (Josh) Reynolds, we’ve got (D’Andre) Swift. So, it’s, man, he’s a piece of the puzzle and when his number’s called, we know he’s going to win, and that’s a comforting feeling.” On how the team can use the versatility of Lions OLB Charles Harris: “We were talking about Charles the other day in the team room. What a great story he was. This time last year, he’s out there running with the three’s on the second field, he’s doing all the special teams reps, holding bags like he started all over again and didn’t bat an eye either. He just worked and he worked himself into making some money and coming back with the team that gave him a shot and in return, he gave us a shot to sign him back. That’s what you want in guys. With that, he was really outside linebacker, third-down defensive end or our sub defensive end. He’s really more – and what we’re doing now, he’s that defensive end mold, but we know if we had to have it, he’d go out there and play SAM linebacker because he was really one of our OLBs last year. So, he has that ability, he’s a good enough athlete, he’s certainly smart enough. And just from what he’s able to do athletically, he’s got internal rush to him as well. Like, he can line up inside, he can twist back inside, he can beat a guard, he can beat a center, he can beat a tackle. There’s value in that versatility, for sure.” On what he looks for in Lions TE T.J. Hockenson as a leader: “Any of these guys that we’ve had that have played a little bit in this League – because he’s not, look, he’s not a young guy anymore. He’s not a pup. You want him to set the tone for everybody else. This is the way we do things, this is how you walk-through, this is how you – everything, all of the little details. And so, yeah, we expect that from him. I would say he takes that stuff serious.” On what the team has accomplished so far this spring and what else he’s looking to accomplish: “We’re trying to hit the bulk of our situations. Obviously, you’re hitting base, we’re in third down right now. We’ll hit red zone tomorrow and next week, two-minute, we’re already doing some of this stuff. We’re not going to worry about goal-line or short yardage, but just get in what you’re going to live in most of the season – the criticals. And just get a good baseline for all that, get us a good foundation, feel good about it, and develop the young guys. Just kind of get the vets to where they knock some of the rust off, they know what we’re trying to do, and then see if we can start building to develop the young guys. Get that crew from last year a little bit better, get these rookies a little bit better so that when we put pads on in training camp, we’re not starting over from scratch.” LIONS OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR BEN JOHNSON OTA #5 QUOTE SHEET June 2, 2022 Opening Statement: “I’ve got to address the elephant in the room before we get going here. It came to my attention that one of my colleagues made a statement about becoming the best coordinator in Detroit Lions history. Two things come to mind—one is, he’s going to have some competition for that. The other one is, I hope for his sake, dancing skills is not included because I saw him trying to breakdance last week and it was not pretty. It was not pretty.” On if he can breakdance: “No, I’m not a break-dancer. I’m more early-2000s Usher. I think that that’s it. But seriously, we’ve had a good spring so far. We set some objectives offensively on what we wanted to accomplish, and (I’m) really happy with the coaches, with the players and what we’ve been able to achieve just in terms of schematically, teaching our system, the work ethic, the fundamentals we’re trying to outline, what we’re going to be about on offense. It’s been really encouraging over the last few weeks, so really pleased there.” On how his comfortability with Lions QB Jared Goff has grown heading into Year 2: “I’ve got a really strong relationship with Jared right now. One of my top priorities, personally, is to help him have the best season of his career. One thing that we’ve done is included him a lot in what we’re trying to do schematically, and so we spent some time this offseason watching more of the stuff he did a few years ago in LA and how we can incorporate some of that, while also challenging him to take the next step in some areas of improvement for him as a player as well. He’s having a good offseason, though. I’m really encouraged with where he is, too.” On what they want to incorporate more of from Lions QB Jared Goff’s skillset this season: “My background, I’ve been around a lot of different coordinators. Conceptually, there are a number of things that come to mind when I see a defense and how we want to attack it. At the end of the day, we want to do what our quarterback does well. I think when you look back at his time in LA, he was really successful with certain schemes, with certain concepts. We’re just going to look to incorporate some of those a little bit more. I know play-action is something he’s really good at, and we’re going to look at doing that. It’s really a strength of our offense as well. We’re going to be a really good running team, so that’s going to show up on Sundays is the play-action and the movement game. I think he’s taken a lot of pride and been able to speak his opinion, give his say on what he likes, what he doesn’t like, what makes sense to him. But at the same time, he’s willing to be coached. He wants to be coached hard. That to me is the most encouraging thing about his development. He’s still growing as a player. He’s not close-minded. He’s had a lot of success. He’s gone to a Super Bowl, but at the same time he wants to continue to push the envelope open and continue to get better.” On how he and Lions QB Jared Goff have discussed the offense next season: “We ended up—early on here in the spring—we ended up sitting down at length for a few days. We had a good bonding experience, if you will.” On if he viewed tape from Lions QB Jared Goff’s time at California: “I haven’t gone that far back. I probably won’t. I think he’s had a lot of success in this League, and I think he’s very familiar with what he’s going to see defensively in this league. I think we’re going to have plenty of ammunition in terms of play calls at his disposal.” On defining the difference in offensive tempo: “I think the word ‘tempo’ has a few different meanings. I don’t think it necessarily means as you’re implying a little bit. We’re not going to go fast. We’re not trying to get 100 plays in a game, that’s not our intent. But we are looking to stress the defense in as many ways as possible. At times we may go fast, and at other times we may let off the pedal a little bit and make sure we’re in the right play. The best way we can do that, get in the right play, is having shorter words, more concise language, and I think that’s really—when you talk to the guys and there are changes to what we’re doing, it’s more so the verbiage at the end of the day. Once they get that down, we’ll be able to play fast, and we’ll be able to execute at a high level.” |
