| July 24, 2024 Opening Statement: “Welcome back everyone. Obviously, I’m excited to be back, the team’s excited to be back. Yesterday was day one, first install and conditioning test, weigh-ins – guys did a great job. Their overall, certainly physicals were in a good place, so I think we’re ready to go. Team knows what to expect, they understand the work that’s got to be put in again and we’ve got a good group. And so, it begins.” On what he does to recharge in the offseason to make sure he is fully ready for the season: “Look, I think, more than anything it’s just getting away from here. Mentally get away from here. I tried to stay away from the building as much as I could, but certainly I had stuff at home. It doesn’t take me long, it really doesn’t. I was ready before July Fourth, so that’s a good sign. But listen, I’m ready, the staff’s ready, these players are ready. We’ve had plenty of time off, and really everything is – I know for me, to get to this point, you’ve already thought about it, you’ve already planned it out, but yet it’s, ‘What are the little things that we can do from a training aspect that push us, really put us in a compromising position to have to react? To develop, to grow? How do we do some of those things?’ So, I’ve got a couple of ideas, but we’re ready. I’m ready.” On what it means to be starting at ‘401’ instead of ‘101’ and how much of an advantage that is: “Well look, I think – when you’re talking about day one of camp, I mean I can – 2021, man, we were – the ball’s on the ground, we’re not getting snap off right, we’ve got guys jumping – and I’m talking about starter, core guys that we think are projected guys and we’re not even on the same page, we’re not even close to being on the same page, you know? The timing of the motions, all these things, the timing of the pressure on defense, alignment, assignment, and so, to me, man, we should be so much – it doesn’t mean there’s not going to be mistakes, but man we should look so much crisper than that. Not even close. We should pick up where we left off in the spring in OTAs is really how I see it. That’s just an example of it. You should feel like we’re ready to go play right now. Now, is it good enough? No, it won’t be good enough, that’s why we have camp. But yeah, man, it should – from the outside looking in like, ‘Man, these guys could go play right now.’ And that’s what I expect.” On what his message is for the team as the season starts: “I talked to them last night and it was really like it’s been, and that’s – it’s all about the work. We don’t live off reputation, we live off of work. And that’s what’s gotten us where we’re at, it’s been a long, hard road to get to where we’re at right now, and there’s a price to be paid, and so we’ve got to go pay it again. That’s the message, and it’ll always be the message.” On the status of players like Lions DL DJ Reader on the PUP and NFI lists and the confidence level that they will be ready soon: “We feel like everybody’s really doing well, on schedule for where we pictured them to be. To your point, we talked about Reader. Reader’s on course, man. We’re not in any hurry with him, but he’s doing well, he’s getting his strength back. The injury has healed, it’s just a matter of getting him to that point where now we feel comfortable getting him out there competing around others. You’ll see (Lions DL Marcus) Davenport out there today, you’ll see (Lions DB Brian) Branch out there today in walkthrough, so these guys are slowly going. I think Davenport is going to be a little quicker than Branch is, but they’ll both be out there in some capacity, which is a good sign. So, no setbacks, we’re moving right along.” On if he would like to see players like Lions QB Jared Goff, Lions WR Amon-Ra St. Brown and Lions T Penei Sewell step up in their leadership: “Yeah, look this is their team. We’re in year four now. Those guys have all been here, Sewell as well, (Lions C) Frank (Ragnow), (Lions T Taylor) Decker, (Lions LB) Alex (Anzalone), (Lions DL) Alim (McNeill) – like, here we go, man. And that’s the other thing, those guys aren’t pups anymore, you know? (Lions S Ifeatu Melifonwu) Iffy, all of them, (Lions LB Derrick) Barnes. So, this is your team and you guys set the standards. We set the standards a long time ago, but now as players, you guys control it. So if it’s not up to your standards, well, it needs to be said and let’s do it again. You guys control it. We shouldn’t have to worry about that anymore. That’s on them. That’s what I want, that’s what I expect.” On if the reminders on the wall in the meeting room about the NFC North division chase have been replaced: “Those are still up there and there’s still tape through it with old school tape. It just looks better that way. But we’ve checked the box on two and we’ve got one more to check, but to get there we’ve got to check those first two one more time and update them. So, everything starts with finding a way to win your division. You do that, you’ve got to put in the work, man, and you’ve got to find a way to win the first game of the season and then you go from there.” On the value of the success from last season in knowing how good the players are and knowing what it takes to be successful: “Well, I think any time you lay out a plan and those guys, man, they trust you, they buy into that plan, they put the work in, it validates what we’ve talked about. And so, they understand this is, for these guys that have been here and have been nowhere else and now we’ve had success, they understand that this is the road, this is the path and that’s the value of it. They see it and they believe it, and so really your own worst enemy is yourself. It’s not anybody else, it’s really not the opponent, it’s always going to be yourself. So, we’re always going to have to guard against – I’ll bring it up again, the complacency, the entitlement, the reputation. Like, ‘What is that? That’s nothing. We’ve got to go back to work.’” On how much the offseason moves put the team in a position to chase what they want: “Well, certainly we feel – (Lions Executive Vice President and General Manager) Brad (Holmes) and myself feel really good about it or we wouldn’t have made those moves. I thought Brad did a hell of a job in the Draft and free agency, but, there again, we don’t know. We hope and we feel pretty good or we wouldn’t have made those moves, but we’ll find out. We’ll find out pretty quick here within, call it 20 days, 25 days, as to, ‘Do some of these guys still have it? Do they mesh with the other guys? Are they still productive players? Are they willing to do it the way we do it?’ So yeah, we feel really good, but we’ll see.” On what day the team puts full pads on and what he needs to see from the team during the acclimation period: “Obviously, four days of acclimation is what they call it here, starting today, and then mandatory day off, and then we will go full pads when they come back, after the day off, which I believe is Monday. So really, it’s kind of what it says. It’s about working guys in this week and let’s get them the reps. Let’s spread the load and let’s get their legs under them, let’s get their football legs under them and then along the way improve a little bit here. There’s not a ton of reps to go around. There’s a restriction on time limits every day. Today can only be 90 minutes, then you get an hour and 45 minutes, and then after that, two hours. So, we’re well within the rules, but it’s really it, it’s getting their football legs under them.” On what the secret was to hit the ground running and have even more success last season: “Well, it was another chance for us to all be together. I bring back up that core group that we’ve had here for a number of years, really going on four years, at that point it was three last year, that’s one, that continuity. But, to me, it’s also – I mean it really is – we add, we have another Draft, we add a couple of players here that we feel like are going to mesh with us. But then I still – I just believe it’s about, man, if you start patting yourself on the back and you don’t believe that everything that it took to get there, it’s going to take that again and then some, then you’ll just – you’re just going to be stuck, you’ll just be average, you’ll be back to a 9-8 season or 8-9 season. And so I think it’s – and that’s not an easy thing to do, but I think there’s got to be this mindset that we had going into last year that, ‘Man, we’re going to be better than we were last year.’ We found a way to get it done, we found that recipe, we know what it’s going to take, we understand how to play with each other, and so I think you never lose that. That stretch we found, that 10 games, our guys understood, they bought into it and we played the game a certain way and that carried over, and I believe what we did last year can carry over into this season, I do, as long as we go to work, man. Nobody’s going to decide – listen, here’s one of the best things that ever happened to me, is I was a part of a team that, man, we did something really special, we came up a little short, and the next we had the exact same team. The exact same team. I mean, we made it a point, and, man, I just remember there were a couple of things, ‘Hey guys, we’re not going to go pads today.’ Everybody goes, ‘Yeah, alright!’ You know, those things, ‘Hey, this is great. Hey guys, get out of here a little bit early.’ And pretty soon, by the end of it, you’re not – you just lost your identity and everything that made you what you are, you went away from it because, ‘You know what? We’ll be OK. We’ve got the same guys.’ And that was a lesson learned for me because we were, we were average. We went 7-9 the next year after going 12-4 and I will never forget that, ever. So, we’re not going to lose our identity. That is the most important thing to me, and I won’t sacrifice it for anyone or anything. I told the team that and they know that.” On how he is a better head coach today than he was six months ago: “More experienced and then I just bring this up, I’ve got more experience, but so does the staff under me. They’ve got more experience, and they’ve got more experience being around me and myself being around them, so that makes me better. Your staff makes you a lot better and they’re the reason that I’m even in this position and we’re having success. We make all – each of us, we make each other better.” On how important new players are to reinvigorating the team: “It’s important. You get these guys that are jockeying for a chance to get a starting position or playing time, and man, they are young, fresh and hungry. Absolutely, it’s important. Look, there is no substitute for competition. It’s the ultimate motivator, is the competition.” |
