Saw 76 & 58 without helmets across the way. That's TJ Lang and Paul Worrilow.
Even further off in the distance they were having Kick and Punt Return practice... well, mostly catching the Kick or Punt actually. The significant part of that is who was trying out for the catching. They were #10 Jared Abbrederis, #13 TJ Jones, #16 Jace Billingsley (who had one drop), #17 Keshawn Martin, and #39w Jamal Agnew (the only defensive player trying out). In this limited set the best returners appeared to me to be Keshawn and Jamal, with Jared a close 3rd.
Further North I saw #21 with his helmet on working on his own and trying various spin moves (Ameer Abdullah).
The entire WR corp moved over in front of the stands I was at and practiced various routes that each broke at 3 yards out. First set was out 3 and 90 degrees straight over. Only drop was Abbrederis, but I couldn't tell if it was on him or the coach throwing the ball out. Next set was break 3 yards out then go off at a 45 degree angle... catching the ball over the shoulder. All did well at that one. I thought I was on to something when I noted who went left out of break and who went right, but the very next set they all switched sides, so nothing there. One non-performance note: there are only two Lions wide receivers with a number in the 80's, all the others are from 10 to 19. Most of those with an 80ish number are tight ends. The two in the 80s are #83 WR Dontez Ford and #84 Michael Rector.
During all the sets Golden Tate would throw the ball he just caught to a fan and have him throw it back to him before getting it to the coaches helper to put it back into use for the set. Must be he hasn't been restricted from fan interfacing as of yet.
Next WR set involved the WR catching the pass in what would be over the middle about 5 yards or so deep then trying to split a double tackle (coach on right and left with pads on arms). All WRs did okay on this but Billingsley did have a drop while spinning to make the contact.
Then I looked across the way and saw AA running with the rest of the RBs doing some kind of slot receiver drill. So no longer practicing on his own. I made note that Tion Green flashed (was noticed) in a couple of drills including this one.
The next WR drill was back to running the players in the same order as yesterday, no changes.
Now the QBs who were drilling with only the centers come over and join the WRs for a few sets. First up was two QBs throwing to two WRs at the same time, one WR going right, one going left. Harder then heck to keep track of who did what with this kind of drill. One set was at roughly 25 yards out, one set was at 15 yards or so, then one was at like 45 yards. All the QBs who took the time to set and throw made the passes look easy as can be. At first, #8 wasn't setting his feet and was having trouble but he finally came around. Trouble not in as way off, but still off and not looking fluid.
After those sets the QBs and the WRs go over to in front of the VIP area and join the DBs who were doing drills of some kind way over there. This is kind of normal, having one corp of players practice together then eventually joining up with another corp and growing the size and number of players involved in each drill. By now it's 4:25pm and 87 degrees. I did note that only Stafford worked with the WR and DB combined sets while #14 worked further away throwing to (or handing off to) RBs and they worked with the OL and DL corps. #8 watched with special teams guys.
I think this was actually a DB drill as I saw the ball hit the ground multiple times, but being 120 yards away or so that's just a guess. I did see #24 (Nevin Lawson) knock down #15 Golden Tate fairly hard with they made contact during the play (not intentionally). There was a lot of hard pressing going on by the DBs all drill long.
Another drill appeared to me to be all about the QB making play call changes at the LOS then executing the final play before a timer went off.
The groups split up again and it looked like the back 7 worked against barrels that were in formation with helmets placed on top of the barrels. I've no idea what the drill was all about.
During the 11 on 11 drills I noted that Cole Wick made a nice catch and move to get YACs. He was the only dude big enough for me to notice with the unaided eye from the distance involved. It wasn't just the distance, but the other 68 guys not involved in the set were standing along the sideline which placed them about 70 yards from me all but blocking the view of the practice for a good 10 minutes.
The 7 on 7 drills after that were completely impossible to see from my location.
After that ended there was still about 10 minutes left but they all went into doing stretches and things instead of sets. After that, there was some one on one work from a few, a number of other players went to the sidelines to sign autographs, the rest either continued stretching or went inside.
I caught a pic of the camera booth under one of the 3 hoods they now have with their new HD camera poles:
Since there is no tackling allowed, and the QBs and RBs can't be hit, it's pretty much impossible to tell how the talent looks on defense. For that I can't wait for the Jets pre-season game. The offense might all come together, but since the D can't press it's hard to know how the OL will hold up. Once again, preseason games. So even though they aren't doing anything more then the basics in these public practices at least in just the first couple of days the roster does seem to know what they are supposed to be doing... unlike a couple years ago when it looked completely chaotic.
I have yet to write my final camp blog for day 3, and I need to come up with a means to get the pictures inserted, I will be doing so over the next 72 hours or so.
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