2008 DETROIT LIONS DRAFT TRANSCRIPTS - SECOND ROUND SELECTION: LB JORDON DIZON

LIONS PRESIDENT & CEO MATT MILLENOpening statement: "With our second pick, obviously, we took Jordon Dizon. Here's the main thing with him: this is a guy who

LIONS PRESIDENT & CEO MATT MILLEN
Opening statement: "With our second pick, obviously, we took Jordon Dizon. Here's the main thing with him: this is a guy who has great instincts; he has great field presence; he's very good in space; excellent vision. He's a guy also who can play all three positions. We'll put him in the middle, but he also helps us on special teams; he can play (weakside), he can play (strongside), he can play inside. His versatility is attractive. The one thing that he has that you can't teach is great instincts. As soon as I watched him, the first thing that hit me was his instincts and it kind of reminded me of - he's kind of a cross between Kurt Gouveia and Tedy Bruschi, that type of player who plays with great feel. He's a nickel backer, he can do a lot of different things but the main thing is he's got great presence."On whether there are concerns about Dizon's size: "He's 230 right now; he was 229 when he was here. You want him to get a little bit bigger, but that's usually what you get when you're getting a kid out of school like that. We'll get him a little bigger."

On whether he'll be the middle linebacker: "He can play all three is the answer to that question, but, yeah, I would like to see him inside. That's what we talked about. But at the least, at the least, he'll upgrade in the special teams, he'll upgrade your depth all of the way across but we'll put him in the middle. That's where he should learn right now."

On putting him at one spot and keeping him there: "And he'll learn - he's a real bright kid too."

On whether he'll be the starting middle linebacker: "We'll wait and see. There's a learning curve there - whenever you bring a kid in regardless of what it is. He'll pick it up too, he's a bright guy."

On media analysts saying Dizon is a Millen's type of linebacker: "I think what they're talking about is: this is a kid, when you watch the game, he just jumps off the tape on you. He's very involved; he's always around the football. Again, he plays by feel; he's got great instinct, that's probably his greatest asset. All the other things you can teach, those things you can't teach."

On whether former Lions LB Stephen Boyd was an instinctive linebacker: "Yeah, Stephen had very good feel also."

On media analysts' concerns about Dizon's ability to play on passing downs: "Nah, he's pretty good in space though. He's pretty good in space - unless they were talking about if they matched him up in man (coverage) and stuff like that. But he was their nickel backer; we can put him in packages. We'll have to get him a little bit bigger, but hey, he played a lot of football in a good football conference against some outstanding (players)."

On his college career stats: "I don't know all the numbers. All I know is: when you put the tape on, he's in on all of the plays."

On whether they'll move LB Paris Lenon to the strong-side: "That's a possibility; that's one of the things you look at. But again, you can take a guy and just throw him in there but he still has to earn it and he still has to learn it, he still has to train and figure it all out. That will take care of itself in due course."

LIONS HEAD COACH ROD MARINELLI
On whether Dizon will start in the middle: "I think you've got to look at him. What you like is: he's got the ability to play all three spots - that's really nice. He's athletic, very athletic. Probably more than athletic, he's instinctive. His instincts are… I think it shows up in his career tackles; he has 463 tackles in his career; the guy is all over the field; he's got a great feel for the game; he's bright. We had him up here for a visit. He's a special guy; he really is a special person."

On the comparisons to former Lions LB Chris Spielman: "That's his whole deal - a productive, high energy guy. He'll bring something special into the locker room also, not doubt."

On whether they'll move LB Paris Lenon over to the strong-side: "Well, not yet. I think we're going to bring him in and get him into the rookie mini-camp and see where he fits. We've just got to see him. He's a football player. The bottom line: this kid's a player."

On whether he's talked to Lenon about changing positions: "I think Joe (Barry) has. It's just whatever fits our system and whatever our needs are. We've just got to get the right guys on the field. But right now, you bring a guy in and we just need to look at him. There's a lot of stuff that goes on inside."

On whether they feel like they've drafted two starters: "Yeah - I think (Dizon's) got a chance, no doubt about it. He's got to come in (so we can) look at him and then put him in a position to go compete for (a starting job). Both these guys are real good competitors, that's what I like about them. I think really they've got great tempo to them and the instincts and the awareness and stuff like that. They're not measurable guys so much as they are football players."

On what they'll be looking for in the second day: "We're looking for good players, obviously… duh (laughter). You want to go out and just keep looking for guys that are productive players. I think the chances of missing go down when it's about production on film. So I think I just want to keep working with that in terms of: their ability to play this game; what we've seen on tape; the instincts and production and then after this thing's over we can just sit and look at this board very hard for tomorrow."

On how moving up in the third round helped them: "It really does - that helps. We can see that tonight when this thing gets cleaned off and kind of see who's there, who we like and who can help us immediately."

On whether what he's seen on film becomes even more important on the second day of the draft: "I just don't doubt it. Those guys are usually there, not because they were high measurable guys, you usually like them because they play good football."

On whether he was surprised on the run on linemen early in the draft: "I think you just don't know which way it's going to fall; who's going to go first, but you know: it starts up front. It always has. If you can find good players there at those line positions, that's the key to football."

On whether he was surprised there were not wide receivers picked in the first round: "Not really - it really didn't. I just thought it was really deep in terms of some front-seven players. The o-line, I felt was deep and I think the runners are fairly deep."

CONFERENCE CALL WITH LIONS LB JORDON DIZON
On how he feels to be coming to Detroit: "I'm loving it. I'm excited - I'm very excited. I'm a water person and you guys have the great lakes, so that'll be fun for me."

On it being different than Kauai (Hawaii): "I heard there are still waves and it's better than Colorado. We don't have any water here."

On how he thinks he'll fit in with the Lions: "You know, they love players that will play. They don't like players that want to (B.S.) them or stuff like that. I came here and told them exactly how I felt and exactly what was on my mind and I guess they liked that. They respect that in a player and that'll they'll get the best out of me. Whatever happened, it worked."

On what he told the Lions: "You know, it's really about me. I told them, 'hey, I'm a small guy, but you'll get the best out of me in every play that I play.' I didn't (B.S.) them at all and they liked that."

On whether he's always had a chip on his shoulder about his size: "Oh man, I mean when I was in Hawaii - let's be honest I was the biggest guy there - and I came to Colorado and I was six feet, 190 pounds and started at linebacker in every game since I've been there. Every time someone says,' he's too small, he's too small to be great, he's too small to do this and blah, blah, blah,' after awhile you get sick of it and you go, 'hey, I don't think size matters here after awhile.'"

On whether he feels he's big enough to play middle linebacker in the NFL: "Oh, yeah. I played in college and you say playing middle linebacker in college is different than the NFL, well I played in the Big 12, that's a pretty tough conference to play in and I have to play against their offensive linemen and maybe a quarter of them go into the NFL. I did it in college, I did it in the Big 12 and I'm pretty sure I can do it in the NFL. I'm actually guaranteeing I can do it in the NFL."

On whether he knows DE Ikaika Alama-Francis: "No, I don't know him. What's the center's name? (Dominic) Raiola, yeah, I met him when I was there and we got to talking and he's from Hawaii and we're both from Hawaii, but he went to Nebraska and I went to Colorado and you know how that's a huge rivalry, so we kind of gave each other (crap) for that."

 

 

On being compared to former Lions' LB Chris Spielman: "I heard that. Matt Millen actually told me about him. I looked him up and it seems like he was a heck of a player. Hopefully I can live up to that and if people are comparing me to him, that's nice."