Tag: Stephen Tulloch

Cam Newton poses a dilemma for Lions defense


Chris McCosky/ The Detroit News

Allen Park— So if you are the Lions on Sunday, do you blitz Cam Newton? Don’t be too hasty with your answer.

On the plus side, the Titans last week were able to confuse and frustrate Newton, Carolina’s prized rookie quarterback, with some well-disguised and well-timed blitz packages.

The Lions had good success blitzing another young, athletic quarterback — Denver’s Tim Tebow — three weeks ago.

But Newton is different. He’s faster than Tebow. Newton covers 40 yards in 4.5 seconds, and he’s more elusive.

“His running style is similar to Vince Young,” defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh said. “He’s big and he has those long strides. He can really hurt you in the open field.”

More to the point, Newton throws the ball better and more willingly than Tebow.

And, when you blitz a young quarterback, you sometimes bail him out because you take away his guesswork and streamline his options.

“It’s pretty simple,” Lions defensive coordinator Gunther Cunningham said. “When you blitz, you are playing man-to-man. He just picks out his guy and fires it to Steve Smith or (tight end Greg Olsen).”

Take into consideration also the Lions aren’t a blitzing team. They are built to bring pressure with their four down linemen and they are very good at that. Twenty-two of their 26 sacks this year have come from defensive linemen.

Throw all that into the equation and it’s not an easy call.

Cunningham, naturally, wasn’t giving away the game plan, but he did acknowledge the unique challenge Newton presents.

“He’s a powerful human being,” he said. “He looks like a defensive end. Like our guy, Matt Stafford, people will watch out before they mess with him again (after he rag-dolled Bears cornerback D.J. Moore last week). Cam’s the same way.”

“They flex him out sometimes at wide receiver and play out of the wildcat. I saw him block (Tim) Jennings from Chicago. He knocked him down and when Jennings tried to get back up he knocked him down again. We are dealing with a heck of a quarterback.”

Newton, the first pick in the draft, already has thrown for 2,605 yards — the most ever by a rookie through nine games. He’s thrown 11 touchdowns and 10 interceptions, and run for 374 yards and seven touchdowns.

“The Titans did a real good job,” said middle linebacker Stephen Tulloch, a former Titan. “They did a ton of zone blitzing where he has one look and you drop into another look. They were able to get their hands on some balls and get five sacks. They had him scrambling and they were able to get to him.”

“That’s what you have to do to him — bring pressure and make it a long day.”

When Newton looked at the Lions on film this week, he saw a defense that can put extreme pressure on quarterbacks without blitzing. From the sound of it, that worries him more than facing a blitzing team.

“They’ve got an arsenal,” Newton told the Charlotte Observer about the Lions. “They get after the quarterback. They create (pressure). They wreak havoc…They’re getting a lot of help from their down linemen. That’s very rare nowadays. These guys are unique because those four down linemen wreak havoc. What that allows is everybody’s in coverage.

“And when that quarterback gets pressure, there’s only so much he can do. …”

You’re not going to take shots downfield if you’ve got pressure. I’m sorry, you’re just not going to do it. We know that’s a big thing coming into this week.”

The Lions have been able to stifle the other mobile quarterbacks they’ve faced this season — Tampa Bay’s Josh Freeman, Minnesota’s Donovan McNabb and Tebow. And in all three games, Tulloch was used as a spy, assigned to track the quarterback wherever he went on the field.

The Lions aren’t saying if they will use a spy on Newton, but the Panthers are expecting it.

“The spy thing, people have done that to us in the past and people are going to do it to us in the future,” offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski told the Charlotte Observer. “It didn’t really have an effect on us.”

Lions defensive end Cliff Avril put it this way: “We don’t change for them; we try to make them change for us.”

Bottom line: Blitzing a dynamic talent like Newton comes with an extremely high risk-reward ratio. It can make you or break you on any given play.

“It’s a difficult task, that’s why I haven’t gotten much sleep,” Cunningham said. “When he scrambles, he can throw the ball on the money. But there are also times when he gets erratic. That’s when we have to get the football.”

chris.mccosky@detnews.com

twitter.com/cmccosky

Bob Wojnowski: This Lions team can contend, unlike some others we’ve seen


Bob Wojnowski

Allen Park

Go ahead and say it, even if it’s premature, even if it sounds kind of funny and almost never gets said around here.

The Lions are a playoff team. Yep, they are. Or should be. Or will be.

They look like it, they snarl like it, and most important, they go on the road and play like it. The Lions are 6-2 at the bye after spending Sunday in Denver treating their opponent as if picking wings off flies. The Lions have a brutishness about them that makes some people uncomfortable, but is mostly necessary in the NFL.

Hey, if drama addicts want to slap labels of “evil” and “dirty” on the Lions, so be it. Those are much better than previous labels of “irrelevant” and “horrific.”

But it’s apparent they aren’t just some nasty bunch that knock quarterbacks and “quarterbacks” (hello, Tim Tebow) on their derrieres. Ndamukong Suh plans a trip to New York this week to make that point with commissioner Roger Goodell. Suh plays on the edge and occasionally crosses it, but I think his intentions are more about impunity than impurity.

The Lions want their defense to be intimidating, and it can be. What they did to Tebow in that 45-10 pasting wasn’t mean. It was predictable. And linebacker Stephen Tulloch swears no disrespect was intended by his post-sack pose, when he went down on a knee to mimic the “Tebowing” craze.

The Lions push the envelope when it comes to abrasiveness, and they do have to be careful. No sense doing too much “Suh-bowing” or “Elbowing.” But they shouldn’t care what anyone calls them as long as they’re not committing dumb penalties, and as long as they push the pocket as well as the envelope.

The Lions sacked Tebow seven times and are third in the league with 24, behind only the Giants and Ravens.

“I think you get an edge by doing things that are within your personality,” coach Jim Schwartz said Monday. “For us, that’s rushing the quarterback, sacking the quarterback, making big plays. Those are the things we want people to respect about us. Those are the things we want people to fear about us.”

Those are the things that turn middlin’ teams into playoff teams. I’m sure you’re aware the Lions haven’t made the playoffs since the 1999 season, when Bobby Ross was the coach and Gus Frerotte (!) was the quarterback.

Challenges ahead

The schedule toughens considerably now, starting with a visit to Chicago after the bye. There are two meetings with Green Bay and trips to New Orleans and Oakland. But the Lions have won six straight on the road after dropping a tidy 26 in a row.

A mere split of the final eight games makes them 10-6 and a potential wild card. If you’re into all the probability gobbledygook, a 6-2 team has a 79.2 percent chance of making the playoffs, according to Stats, LLC (since 1990). Here’s an even better number: A team that wins its first four road games has a 91.4 percent chance.

And you thought you’d be bored in January. I’m risking looking foolish here, but that’s OK. The Lions actually are loaded with talent, and that’s not a loaded statement. Nor am I loaded right now. On the Fox broadcast Sunday, former NFL safety John Lynch suggested the Lions have as much talent as any team in the league.

Not sure about that, but they do have as much defensive-line talent as anybody. For all the acclaim about Suh, Corey Williams and Kyle Vanden Bosch, don’t overlook Cliff Avril and Lawrence Jackson. Schwartz and GM Martin Mayhew said they’d rebuild by unleashing mayhem upon opposing quarterbacks, and that’s one way — maybe the best way — to win in the NFL.

Times have changed

Having a franchise quarterback is another way, and Matthew Stafford has overcome injuries and bouts with accuracy doubts to put up impressive numbers — 19 touchdown passes and four interceptions.

A growing dynamic is the way the defense complements the offense.

Against the Broncos, Avril had a 24-yard fumble return for a touchdown, and underrated cornerback Chris Houston added a 100-yard interception return. You could say both bear asterisks because they came against Tebow, but that’s mean.

You know what playoff teams do? They win on the road. They sack the quarterback. They create turnovers, and the Lions are third in the league with 11 interceptions. Their run defense is still a concern (ranked 30th), but interestingly, they lead the league in forcing three-and-outs, a statistic Schwartz clearly likes.

“The ability to get the ball back quickly for our offense is important,” he said. “We have an explosive offense, but we have big-play capability on defense too.”

No one would be goofy enough to guarantee a playoff berth. Not even me. Of course, the Lions were 6-2 in 2007 after blasting the Broncos, 44-7, and proceeded to finish 1-7, which laid the groundwork for 0-16. Other than still playing in Ford Field and wearing the same color scheme, these Lions bear no resemblance to those Lions.

Home losses to the 49ers and Falcons were eye-openers, and evidence a punishing ground game is something the Lions lack, and have trouble stopping. That could be an issue against tougher teams. But the Lions have proven they can win almost anywhere (Tampa, Dallas) and almost any way.

Officially, they’ve accomplished nothing so far, other than building an identity that a lot of people are noticing. It’s what playoff-worthy teams do, in case we’d forgotten.

bob.wojnowski@detnews.com

twitter.com/bobwojnowski

Perception of ‘evil’ Lions doesn’t match reality


Chris McCosky/ The Detroit News

Allen Park — For a 5-2 football team, there sure are a lot of critics trying to pick the Lions apart.

Even the league’s own website got into the fray. They have billed the Lions game Sunday against the Broncos as Good vs. Evil — the good being Tim Tebow and the bad being Ndamukong Suh.

“I don’t know if that’s appropriate,” coach Jim Schwartz said.

It’s not appropriate, or accurate. But don’t think it won’t be used as a motivator this week. Defensive coordinator Gunther Cunningham posted the headline and artwork from the NFL.com piece in the defensive meeting room.

“Yeah, I guess evil’s coming to town,” middle linebacker Stephen Tulloch said. “The media likes to portray us as a dirty team, but that’s not the way we play. We’re just physical, we play hard and we hold everybody accountable.”

The critics aren’t letting the facts get in their way. Case in point — the accusations made by two Falcons players last week. No matter how much evidence is compiled — video and audio — that Suh and Cliff Avril were several yards away from fallen Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan and didn’t kick him or taunt him, the perception they did won’t go away.

Lions myths are mounting by the week. It might be a good time to debunk a few of them.

Myth : Suh is going through a sophomore slump and he isn’t having the kind of impact he had last season.

Sports Illustrated poured gas on this one, naming Suh to their midseason all-underachieving team. It doesn’t pay to get too upset with these types of lists. Their intent is to stir debate.

But there is a growing perception that Suh is somehow not impacting games like he did last season.

“He is playing some kind of football and if anybody wants to deny that, they don’t know what they’re talking about, and probably never will,” Cunningham said. “He’s playing outstanding football.”

Critics point to his three sacks and 22 tackles as evidence that his impact is less. Certainly they are off his 10-sack, 66-tackle pace last season. But for one, those numbers don’t begin to measure his impact; and two, to expect him to duplicate or surpass 10 sacks is unrealistic.

“You can’t measure everything on a statistic like a sack, because I can take each stat that you have and turn it upside down for you,” Cunningham said. “He’s been very productive, very explosive. He’s played more physical this year than he did last year.”

Here’s a mini-myth: The Lions sack numbers are down. Really? They have 17 as a team, four behind the league leaders.

Schwartz just shook his head at the SI jab at Suh.

“He’s an impact player,” he said. “Everybody has a plan for him. Everybody tries to take him out. We are very satisfied with his production. He plays hard and he affects the game. We will worry about what our expectations and evaluations are, not those from people outside this building.”

Myth : The Lions can’t stop the run.

This one is a little trickier to defend. The Lions do rank 29th against the run, allowing 129.4 per game.

They have also allowed three consecutive 100-plus games — Atlanta’s Michael Turner (122), San Francisco’s Frank Gore (141) and Chicago’s Matt Forte (116).

“According to a lot of people, we can’t stop the run,” Tulloch said. “That is false. We’ve had some lapses lately but we are back in tune to what we need to do.”

What would be a more accurate criticism is the Lions have given up too many big plays in the run game.

Turner broke a 50-yarder. Gore accumulated 102 of his 141 yards in two carries.

There have been some major breakdowns in the back end — either at outside linebacker or safety.

But to say their run defense is bad seems harsh.

“That’s everybody else’s opinion,” Suh said. “I personally don’t think you can line up and run the ball on us all day. That’s one of the things we pride ourselves on. We’ve let out some big runs, which makes it look a lot worse than it really is.

“But perception is reality some times.”

Here’s a reality: Nine times the Lions have stoned a third-and-1 or a fourth-and-1 play. Suh stopped a third-and-1 and fourth-and-1 back-to-back against the Bears.

They stopped a fourth-and-1 at the goal line in Dallas, a fourth-and-1 in the fourth quarter in Minnesota, a third-and-1 in the fourth quarter against the Chiefs, and a huge fourth-and-1 from their 11 in the fourth quarter at Tampa.

They can stop the run.

Myth : Matthew Stafford struggles to throw accurately on underneath routes.

This one came out of the blue and from a surprising critic — former quarterback Kurt Warner. He told NFL Network the reason the Lions’ offense struggled the last two weeks was Stafford’s inability to connect on those short passes in front of the linebackers.

A quick review of the numbers shows that Stafford has completed 73.5 percent of his throws behind the line of scrimmage (36 for 49 for 204 yards) and 67.4 percent of his throws from 1 to 10 yards (91-for-135, 805 yards).

Combine those and he’s hitting 69 percent of his underneath routes with five of his 16 touchdowns and two of his four interceptions.

It’s not Tom Brady-like by any measure, but it’s hardly a red flag. If Warner or anybody else wants to nit-pick at the sixth-best quarterback in the NFL, he could have pointed out his struggles with passes in the 21- to 30-yard range.

He’s hit only 4 of 16 there.

Stafford has struggled the last two weeks, no question. But to single out his accuracy on underneath routes seems random — just like a lot of the attempts to deconstruct the Lions’ 5-2 start.

chris.mccosky@detnews.com

(313) 222-1489

John Niyo: Lions’ Ndamukong Suh goes on defense to protect reputation


John Niyo

Detroit Ndamukong Suh had a lot to say Monday.

But nothing said it better than this.

“If I’m not gonna protect myself,” the Lions all-Pro defensive tackle mused, “then nobody else is going to.”

That, as much as any statement — alleged or otherwise, heard or unspoken — might explain what he’s thinking these days, both on and off the field.

Because he’s being asked to wage a war on both fronts, no matter how understandably reluctant he is to admit it. When he’s not fighting opponents double teams in the trenches — and the cheap shots that inevitably come with them — he finds himself fighting, or at least being asked to fight, a perception that he’s a dirty player, fueled by postgame comments from the Falcons after a 23-16 loss at Ford Field.

Suh and teammate Cliff Avril were accused by Falcons players of taunting and trash-talking on the field when Atlanta quarterback Matt Ryan went down what initially looked to be a serious leg injury in the game. (Ryan did return to the game the next series.)

Receiver Roddy White told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution he “lost a whole lot of respect for” both players for “the (expletive) they were doing when Matt got hurt.”

The newspaper quoted White as saying Avril “was kicking (Ryan’s) feet saying, ‘Get him off the field.'”

Falcons center Todd McClure said Suh was saying, “‘Get the cart’ and several other things that I can’t repeat.”

Avril disputed those comments via Twitter on Sunday night, while Suh, who normally doesn’t address the media until Wednesday each week, angrily addressed them Monday.

“They’re gonna say what they want to say,” Suh said, adding “it’s he-said, she-said” as he quickly dismissed the suggestion — one that apparently was lost in translation by the initial report — that Avril actually kicked Ryan while he was down.

The video clearly shows he didn’t. (Avril and Suh are barely in the picture before and after Ryan goes down in a heap.)

And besides, as Suh points out, “I know for a fact, if Cliff — or anybody, for that matter — kicked an opposing quarterback, I’m sure there would’ve been a riot.”

“If that would’ve happened to Matt Stafford and he was on the ground and somebody kicked him,” Suh said, “I guarantee you all hell would’ve broke loose.”

Instead, we’re left with this, whatever the heck it is.

He said, he said

The Lions lost. The Falcons won. Atlanta players accused Detroit of ugly behavior, prompting the Lions to fire back with similar accusations. And we in the media become a ping-pong ball of sorts.

He said, she said? It’s more like, “Did you hear what they said about what you said?” (While conveniently ignoring the fact the hidden soundtrack of an NFL game would make Howard Stern cringe.)

“There was no comments — at all,” Lions linebacker Stephen Tulloch said. “I was there when he went down. … We waved for the trainers to come get Matt. We never once made a threat like that to him at all.

“It’s absurd that they would even mention that.”

White, though, wasn’t backing down Monday as he clarified his remarks in an interview with the NFL Network.

“We didn’t say (Avril) kicked Matt,” White said. “We said one of the guys — I don’t know if it was 92 (Avril) or 93 (Kyle Vanden Bosch), one of the defensive ends — came over and he was making kicking gestures, like, ‘Get him out of here.’ And I know Suh said what he said. He was like, ‘Go get the cart for him. Get him out of here.’ He knows he said that.”

Suh was asked about what he said or didn’t say Monday, and he responded, “I’m not even near their quarterback, so how am I going to trash-talk somebody that has a medical staff that’s all around him?”

But he didn’t stop there, as Suh pointed out it wasn’t the Lions who made contact with Ryan on the play. It was his own lineman, Will Svitek, who stepped on Ryan’s ankle while trying to block the Lions defensive end Lawrence Jackson.

“If you look at it, to me, it’s karma,” Suh said, noting the Falcons own well-cultivated reputation for dirty play on the offensive line. “For all the bad stuff they’ve done in the past, their offensive lineman hurt their own quarterback. So I’ll leave it at that.”

White responded, “We’re not gonna go back and forth about ‘he-said, she-said,'” before doing just that, adding, “And then he’s gonna say it’s karma for what we’ve done in the past? And then their quarterback (Matthew Stafford) gets hurt on the last play of the game.”

Reputation is sticking

Back to you, Mr. Suh, who was asked if he was hurt personally by the accusations.

“Do I need Rodney White’s respect?” Suh said, before answering himself. “No. I’ll leave it at that.”

At that point, he walked away, flanked by a Lions spokesman.

Now, I have no idea whether Suh purposely mispronounced White’s name or not as a parting gesture — I don’t think he did — or whether Suh knows where the Pistons former first-round pick is now. (Last I heard, he was hooping it up in South Korea.)

But as Suh himself rather bluntly reminded us Monday, we really don’t know him at all.

“Nobody’s gonna be able to really understand who I am, except for very few,” Suh said.

He went on to explain that’s because some people “won’t take the time” to, as he put it, “see the type of person I am.” Then, in the next breath, he admitted that’s because “they can’t get close enough to me. I won’t let people get close to me.”

So Suh me, but I don’t know how we’re going to solve that riddle if that’s the way he’s going to play this game.

Still, what I do know about Suh is that he’s smart, he’s focused, he’s determined and he’s potentially as dominant a player as we’ve ever seen at his position. And while it’d be foolish to think this talk will change his game — “Have you seen me stop playing? Not at all. It’s not gonna affect me,” he said — it’d be a shame if that talent got overshadowed by talk of dirty play, much as it has been with Pittsburgh’s James Harrison.

Talk is cheap. But reputations are invaluable.

john.niyo@detnews.com

twitter.com/JohnNiyo

Bob Wojnowski: Lions tough to figure out, but let’s try


Bob Wojnowski

Allen Park — Finally, you can do it without being mocked. You can wear your tattered No. 20 jersey in public and loudly suggest this is the year, and not everyone chuckles now.

The debate is legitimate, not merely the slurred rants of Lions fans. You don’t have to be drunk or delusional to suggest this is the year the Lions return to that strange, mythical place known as the playoffs. Lots of people more respected than me have suggested it.

Nothing is more deeply craved in this town than a Lions playoff berth, and like many, I’ve spent the past month batting the idea around. It’s not an easy thing to grasp. The Lions are three seasons removed from 0-16, and are 8-24 under Jim Schwartz. But they finished last season on a 4-0 run, and Matthew Stafford is healthy and so hungry, he might eat the Curse of Bobby Layne.

The Lions hear the playoff talk, appreciate it, but steadfastly decline to wallow in it.

“Honestly, it doesn’t make any difference,” Schwartz said Wednesday. “Does it make it easier to watch TV? Maybe. We have a lot of expectations, we just choose not to make them a big deal. All that stuff is nice, it’s good for our city, it’s probably nice for guys’ moms. But we’re gonna let Sundays speak for themselves.”

Well, let me speak for Sundays then. One moment, I’m positive the Lions will be in the playoff hunt. The next moment, I’m thinking they’re a year away.

At least they’re no longer a decade away. The last season they made the playoffs was 1999. Since their 1957 championship, the Lions have one measly playoff victory, and grown men still shed tears of joy recalling that 38-6 pummeling of the Cowboys on Jan. 5, 1992.

We’ll know something about these Lions right away Sunday in Tampa, where they open against a Buccaneers team that also will scrap for a playoff spot. A year ago, the Lions pulled a 23-20 overtime stunner that essentially knocked the Buccaneers out of the playoffs, even though they finished 10-6.

Playoff debate will rage

Buck up and buckle in because this will be an unpredictable ride, starting in the heat of Tampa and ending in the cold of Green Bay. In between, the debate will rage:

The Lions will make the playoffs because: Stafford’s shoulder is healed, and in fact, surgery and rehab made him stronger. He could be great, as long as his mishaps are quirks of misfortune, not proof he’s injury-prone.

The Lions won’t make the playoffs because: Technically, Stafford is injury-prone. Sorry, but the numbers don’t lie — he’s played in 13 of 32 games.

The Lions will make the playoffs because: Have you seen their defensive line?! Ndamukong Suh is a behemoth, Corey Williams is terrific and Cliff Avril gnaws on quarterback limbs.

The Lions won’t make the playoffs because: Opposing teams will counter their fierce pass rush with quick passes and draws. That will frustrate Suh to the point he swings a quarterback over his head and flings him through the goalposts, earning a $20,000 fine.

The Lions will make the playoffs because: They have stars or potential stars in Stafford, Calvin Johnson, Suh and Williams. That’s a nice core.

The Lions won’t make the playoffs because: You still have to run the ball and stop the run, and they haven’t proven they can do either. The offensive line pass-protects better than it run-blocks, and the loss of rookie back Mikel Leshoure is huge, putting a lot on Jahvid Best.

The Lions will make the playoffs because: GM Martin Mayhew has significantly upgraded the talent by making shrewd acquisitions, drafting well and not being Matt Millen. Linebacker Stephen Tulloch is a crucial addition.

The Lions won’t make the playoffs because: This year’s top rookies — DT Nick Fairley, Leshoure — won’t make an immediate impact due to injuries. And the secondary still lacks big-play talent.

The Lions will make the playoffs because: Lots of NFL teams leap up suddenly. Last season, Tampa Bay went from 3-13 to 10-6. Why not Detroit?!

The Lions won’t make the playoffs because: “Why not the Lions?!” is a mantra passed down from generation to generation. This franchise long has defied all statistical trends.

The Lions will make the playoffs because: NFL experts such as ESPN’s Chris Mortensen and SI’s Peter King say they will, and both sound very authoritative on TV.

The Lions won’t make the playoffs because: Most Las Vegas books still have the over-under on Lions victories at 7.5, and Vegas is a more-authoritative king than King.

The Lions will make the playoffs because: The NFC requires six teams to qualify. Four are quasi-givens — Green Bay, Atlanta, Philadelphia and whatever slug wins the West (St. Louis, maybe). That leaves New Orleans, the N.Y. Giants, Dallas, Chicago, Detroit and Tampa Bay battling for two wild cards, and none are especially imposing.

The Lions won’t make the playoffs because: Green Bay, Atlanta, Philadelphia, St. Louis, New Orleans and New York will.

The Lions will make the playoffs because: They’ll go to Green Bay for the Jan. 1 finale 9-6 and the experience and swagger to finally smite the ghosts of Lambeau Field!

The Lions won’t make the playoffs because: Green Bay doesn’t need ghosts when it has Aaron Rodgers. The Packers will win 20-14 to end the Lions season at 9-7.

That’s not what you wanted to hear, I know. But take solace in this: The mocking is over, and the debating has just begun.

Bet on it

Bodog.com odds for the NFL season:

Super Bowl XLVI

NFC

John Niyo: Lions LB Zack Follett is back, thankful and pumped up


John Niyo

Allen Park — The first time the lockout ended — and the doors closed almost as soon as they’d opened in April — linebacker Zack Follett was one of a handful of players who managed to get into the Lions practice facility.

“He showed up and then they shut it down about two hours later,” laughed Matt Burke, the team’s linebackers coach. “So I actually saw him for about five minutes is all.”

That was enough, though. Enough for Follett to show not that he was ready to play football again — he wasn’t, he readily admits now — but that he was still hoping to be.

And after the team had extended him a contract offer before the lockout in early March, he figured that was the least he could do.

“I wanted to show them that, since they gave me this opportunity, I’m going to be diligent and do what I need to do,” Follett said. “I’m not going to be slacking off.”

Friday, he showed them he’d made good on that promise, at least. Nine months after suffering a career-threatening neck injury that left him momentarily paralyzed, Follett was back on the practice field as the Lions kicked off training camp.

“I never thought I’d have a helmet on again,” said Follett, who received full medical clearance Thursday after meeting with the Lions medical staff and passing a conditioning test. “This is a big blessing, and I’m very thankful.

“It felt good, running around and getting back on the field, something that when this all happened I thought wouldn’t be a possibility. And to be honest, because of the way my neck felt earlier this year, I was ready to hang it up.”

Follett was ready, if not willing, because his body wasn’t — or so it seemed — months after he took a blindside hit from Giants defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul while covering a kickoff last October. The hit left him without feeling in his extremities, and it was only after he’d been carted off the field on a backboard and taken to a local hospital that he regained full movement in his arms and legs.

His season was over, his career in jeopardy.

Heart trumps doubt

“Something serious like that, I definitely wasn’t even looking to play football anymore,” said Follett, a 2009 seventh-round pick out of Cal who quickly became a fan favorite in Detroit, as much for his brash talk as his reckless style of play, including that highlight-reel hit on Rams receiver Danny Amendola as a rookie.

Follett, wearing his homemade “Pain Train is Coming” T-shirt in the locker room Friday, acknowledged as much as he thanked the fans for their support, saying, “With them believing in me just over pretty much one hit in my career, I mean, it shows a lot.”

The neck injury, though it didn’t require surgery, did require months of rehabilitation. Follett saw a specialist in North Carolina and another in Ohio after consulting with team physicians in Detroit. He worked with a rehab specialist near his offseason home in Fresno, Calif., as well. But persistent pain this winter left him seriously doubting his future, even after the Lions offered him a one-year contract as an exclusive-rights free agent.

“I signed right before the lockout, and it got me all gung-ho, so I went into the weight room and tried to lift weights and it still didn’t feel right,” he said. “So I got discouraged.”

And if you know Follett — this Gospel-spreading, freestyle-rapping free spirit — you know that didn’t feel right.

“You know the type of kid he is, that he’s going to want to do whatever he can to get back,” Burke said. “But it was a pretty big unknown. We were sitting in meetings talking about guys and it was like, ‘What about Follett?’ Nobody really knew. But I was really happy to see him out there today. It’s a pleasant surprise.”

Ready to win spot

There were many happy returns Friday in Allen Park. Football’s back in business, and the players — most of them, anyway — are back to work. But no one’s more pleased than Follett, though he’s well aware all he has been given is a chance to keep playing.

A roster spot, he’ll have to earn. And he’ll have his work cut out to do that, a year after he was essentially handed a starting job in training camp. The Lions already have added one free-agent linebacker in Justin Durant, who’ll likely start alongside DeAndre Levy, and they may add another soon, with veteran starters Nick Barnett and Stephen Tulloch among the possibilities.

“Coming in my rookie year, I had my head on backward,” Follett said. “Coming in my second year, trying to start and having that pressure was tough. … Now, there’s really no pressure. No one expects anything of me because of where I’m coming from. So I have no monkey on my back. I can just go out there and play.”

But can he still play the way he used to, flying down the field on special teams or filling the gap in run support, knowing what he knows after last fall’s scare?

“Anyone could have that one play that puts ’em in the hospital or whatever,” said Follett, who checked in at 238 pounds Friday and “looked good,” according to coach Jim Schwartz. “But I definitely feel like I’m protected. I wouldn’t be coming back if I didn’t feel that way.

“I’ll try to be smart keeping my head up, but as far as going out there and playing soft? I read that in an article that he’ll probably be playing scared, and they obviously don’t know me. I got here not on my athletic ability, but on my heart and desire and love for the game. If that was a question in my mind, then I wouldn’t come back. But I feel good and I’m ready to go out there and prove it.”

john.niyo@detnews.com

twitter.com/JohnNiyo

Lions’ DeAndre Levy has bevy of options


Chris McCosky / The Detroit News

Allen Park— In a perfect world, the Lions would lock in DeAndre Levy at middle linebacker and concentrate their offseason efforts toward filling the gaping holes at the two outside linebacker positions.

But, as Levy well knows, the world is anything but perfect. That’s why he is ready and willing to move back to outside linebacker.

Advertisement



“Whatever happens, I am willing to play any position,” he said while cleaning out his locker back on Jan. 3. “I am always ready. I know both positions and I have no preference.”

Levy, in his second year last season, certainly gave the Lions no reason to move him out of the middle. Once he got healthy, he validated the coaching staff’s belief that he could lead the defense.

In the team’s last four games, all wins, Levy delivered a game-saving interception against Green Bay, a winning pick-six at Miami, and a pair of 11-tackle performances at Tampa Bay and against Minnesota.

So why would the Lions consider moving Levy? Because the Lions presently have no true starter at either outside linebacker position and it’s possible that a quality middle linebacker will be easier to acquire than two outside linebackers.

Certainly there’s no guarantee the Lions will be able to acquire a middle linebacker, especially one who would be an upgrade from Levy, but it is one of the scenarios the Lions would consider.

Presently, the only outside linebackers on the roster are Bobby Carpenter, Ashlee Palmer and Caleb Campbell, none of whom the Lions consider a full-time starter. General manager Martin Mayhew said that two-year starter Julian Peterson would not be back. Opening-day starter Zach Follett’s career is in jeopardy because of the neck injury he sustained in Week 6. His replacement, Landon Johnson, is an unrestricted free agent.

Although neither Mayhew nor Schwartz will discuss the team’s offseason priorities, they will certainly look hard at linebackers, both inside and outside, in the draft (April 28-30) and when the free-agency period begins, which will be whenever a new collective bargaining agreement is reached.

The consensus among draft experts, thus far, is that Von Miller of Texas AM and Akeem Ayers of UCLA are the top prospects at outside linebacker, and both are expected to be taken before the Lions pick at No. 13.

“We are going to take the best player available and you have to understand that, at that point, we’re talking about a group of players with a similar grade,” Mayhew said.

Most of the mock drafts have the Lions taking an offensive lineman at 13, validating Mayhew’s point.

But here’s another scenario that could impact Levy. What if Mayhew thinks the Lions can land a quality inside linebacker through free agency, somebody such as Tennessee’s Stephen Tulloch or Buffalo’s Paul Posluszny?

Would they not move Levy to the outside in that scenario? It’s something they would have to at least consider.

Like Schwartz said, the Lions believe that Levy is their guy at middle linebacker and they aren’t actively looking to move him. But the goal is to upgrade the entire linebacker unit, and if the best way to do that is to bring in another middle linebacker and move Levy to the outside, that’s what they will do.

Personnel dept.

The Lions have signed safety Erik Coleman , who was recently released by Atlanta.

chris.mccosky@detnews.com

(313) 222-1489