Matt Patricia: 'A Lot of the Rookies We Are Trying to Take It Slow With'
As the excitement level builds to witness and evaluate the young talent on Detroit's roster, head coach Matt Patricia explained Monday the reasons why the plan is to take it slow with the rookies.
"A lot of the rookies we're trying to take it slow with. There's a lot of information that they have to learn," he said.
For rookies Jeff Okudah and D'Andre Swift, this was the first occasion putting on pads and showcasing their skill set in front of their teammates and coaches.
Although the excitement level is high to examine how effective the young talent can be against veterans, day one saw Okudah and Swift work with reserves mostly.
Swift worked behind third-year running back Kerryon Johnson while Okudah worked with the No. 2's among Detroit's defensive backs unit.
Okudah had moments to match up against Detroit's talented wide receivers, but Kenny Golladay was able to best the ex-Buckeye first-round draft choice.
"Jeff (Okudah) is working really hard. He's trying to do everything that we want him to do. He's learning our system, which is great, and competing," Patricia said.
"Certainly from a standpoint of being on the field for the first time in NFL practice with pads on, there's definitely just a lot coming at those guys from different directions. You know how I am with the whole starters thing, I don't know who our starters are. We had day one of pads, so I'm pretty sure Matthew Stafford -- I'm good there --the rest of that stuff we'll have to figure it out.
