More notes from my morning meeting here at the Combine in Indy with Lions President Matt Millen!

February 25, 2007

Indianapolis, INNFL Combine
Well I traveled all night (after the MSU game) through an ice storm to make it to my 8 a.m. meeting with Lions President Matt Millen. Things here have been very interesting and here are some notes from that meeting: 

1. On Kevin Jones: “the Doctors are really pleased with his progress. I personally go off of the player and he’s really optimistic.”
2. On the NFL situation with the salary cap: “this is a difficult year for free agents (amount and quality) the cap jumped so much that teams have the money to resign the guys they want.”
3. On the off field issues and the NFLPA coming to the owners and wanting to institute a policy to get problem guys out of the league: “today is so different then when I played. There is better dialogue certainly since I played, the landscape has changed and that is really good.”
4. On Drew Stanton making such a huge impression at the combine and why so many teams are in love with him: “watch him play! After today they will view him a whole lot better. They will be saying he really helped himself here. That kid will be GREAT! He can do what others can’t, and he does it naturally. I really think what he offers is that he loves to compete.”
5. On whether or not Damien Woody will be back: “It is all up to Damien. If he does what he says and what he has been asked to do he will be o.k. and if not he will be gone.” I predict that he will not by the way.
6. On Jon Scott’s fractured hip: “he cracked his hip, actually had a chip and it healed fine. He has had multiple MRI’s and what the doctors are looking for is blood flow and trying to see how it is doing. Where it was at, they really want to see lots of blood flow to the area.”
7. On gauging interest from other teams about Dre’ Bly: “we have been talking to and about Dre’ to a lot of teams, and a couple of teams have already called we talked specifically.” My prediction is that Bly, Hall and Bell will be GONE by the beginning of the March 19 of the offseason workouts.
8. When talking what he expects with his second pick he stressed that he still “needs a starter their,” and that is a good assessment considering it is the second pick of the second round.
9. Millen is one of the members of the most distinguished committees in the NFL, the competition committee. He mentioned that they recently had a presentation that the NFL has advanced dealing with ACL and MCL injuries so far, that now although they may take more time to heal, in many cases they aren’t looked upon as career ending, “maybe more like an ankle injury and that says a lot.”
10. On Teddy Lehman and his slow recovery, Millen thinks that he is on track for recovery. Millen made it know that Joe Barry (new DC) “really likes him, and liked him coming out so we now just want him well.”

He talked specifically about a few players and here are some of those notes:

 

1. Adrian Peterson RB Oklahoma “he is a freak of nature. He loves football and he just exudes enthusiasm.” On whether or not he is concerned about the injury: “you have to look at him injury and ask why, and when you do you see nothing is chronic.”
2. Joe Thomas T Wisconsin “he has a huge heart and with him you want to find out all you can. He just loves the game and I would love to have his dad on our team also.”
3. Dan Bazuin DE CMU “whoever takes that kid will not be disappointed. He is one of the great kids.” On whether or not he thinks his skills may be more better suited for the 3-4 instead of the 4-3 “I think wherever he goes, he will have his hand in the dirt, he is a pass rusher.”
4. Gaines Adams DE Clemson Are you concerned that he looks small? “Weight is not the issue, he is about the same as Kalimba. You can teach how to defense the run but you can’t teach pass defense and rushing the QB.”