What They're Saying: Dan Campbell, Brad Holmes, Rod Wood
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The Detroit Lions front office and head coach Dan Campbell spent the week at the annual league meetings discussing league rules, free agency and the upcoming NFL draft.
Here are highlights of what was said by the Lions this week.
Dan Campbell
On potentially pursuing quarterback Lamar Jackson: "Yeah, look, Lamar’s a heck of a talent. Trying to defend that guy has been something else. We played them two years ago but, man, we got a quarterback. So I’m like, we got a quarterback and thank God we got one, and so we’re good. But man, he’s a heck of a talent."
On pushing the quarterback during sneaks: "I'm all good with it. I've got no problem, man. I think of it defensively, you've gotta have a plan to stop it. That's what fires me up. We're going to have a plan to stop it. That's like my goal, we come back here next year and teams will be like, all right, we can't do that anymore. You know? Listen, you've got something good, defensively, you've got to find a way to stop it. This will be fun."
On signing Cam Sutton: "Cam just popped off the tape, just because the way he played, man, was everything we're about. It's not always the flashiest, but, man, it's productive, it's violent and it's nasty. He fits us, and we knew he could help us."
Brad Holmes
On pursuing cornerback C.J. Gardner-Johnson: "I just kept calling (agent) Kevin Conner, just kind of just checking in and saying, 'Hey man, what’s going on?' And that just kept escalating, escalating. And then it escalated all the way up until I want to say Friday we had a good conversation, and then Saturday we followed up again, just internally as a group, and even Sunday morning it was just another one of those routine calls and it just happened to escalate till we kind of got in a position we could get it done."
Reaction to signing of Gardner-Johnson: "The kids were sleeping upstairs, wife was sleeping, I basically woke the whole household up when we got that done. We were just bursting out with excitement,” Holmes said. “I woke up the whole house, it was about 10:00, 10:30 p.m. at night, but my wife did understand. I don’t know if my son and my daughter understood, but they were happy that they were able to wake up and celebrate again.”
Rod Wood
On moving the practice facility away from Allen Park: “We’re considering whether we’re going to continue to stay there and put more money into the facility, or be better off looking at locations elsewhere in Metro Detroit, where we’d have more space for the team and training camp for the fans. Right now, in the short run, we’re going to stay where we are, do the best we can to get as many fans in there and have the experience as good as it can be.”
On NFLPA survey revealing food service and training room issues: "Part of bringing in Brett Fischer was a response to that. And we're redoing the dining facility. We're taking the opportunity to move the dining facility upstairs, so we won't be competing with the players and we won't be taking space from them. Hopefully that will at least improve things, and we'll continue to look at the surveys moving forward. We do it on everything with players, way beyond what the P.A. survey does. I think it was for the most part solid, but the same two areas were identified and we invested in them."
