Will Adjustments Be Made to Lions' Practice Drills Based on Injury Concerns?
Last season, 16 members of the Detroit Lions roster were placed on the season-ending injured reserve list.
Head coach Matt Patricia has emphasized repeatedly his desire to monitor all aspects of Detroit's training regime in order to ensure players are safe and put in the best positions to succeed.
But within the first week already, another player was placed on the injured reserve -- rookie defensive tackle Jashon Cornell.
One of the things that probably puts me in the worst mood is when somebody gets hurt. I think that for me as a coach, I'm always trying to make sure that we practice in the safest manner possible," Patricia said Thursday during a video conference.
Will he consider making some changes to drills based upon the latest significant injury to his roster?
"It's one of those deals where you have two drills going on at the same time. So I wasn't there. I'm always trying to figure out, is there a way that we could have been safer? That was just one of those things that happened in that particular case. It just looked like he stepped and there was an injury because of that," he said.
This past offseason, Detroit did make changes to their strength and conditioning staff.
Josh Schuler was promoted to the head strength and conditioning coach, while Morris Henry and Tom Kanavy were hired on as assistant strength and conditioning coaches.
"You certainly wonder if maybe a little bit more offseason, a little bit more training, any of those things. You always go through that in your head -- just trying to make sure that the players are as safe as possible. Certainly, if there are drills that I see that I don't think are safe, the drill is going to be stopped as soon as I see it. And it's going to be corrected, certainly," Patricia explained.
As a result of Cornell's season-ending injury, Detroit worked out potential replacements for the defensive line in Will Clarke, Kendall Coleman, Jayrone Elliott, and Anthony Lanier Wednesday.
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