Showing the rooks what -- and who -- it's all about

Terry Foster of the Detroit News highlights something very cool and under-the-radar that Lions Coach Jim Schwartz recently did -- and apparently hoped would remain a secret.

Schwartz took top Lions draft choices Matthew Stafford, Brandon Pettigrew and Louis Delmas to the Dearborn Truck Assembly Plant, where they sat for two hours and signed autographs, took photos and passed out Lions gear to surprised workers.

He wanted this to be part of his players' education on the NFL and the city of Detroit.

Schwartz is a different cat. After a month of planning, he took his high-profile rookies to meet the rank-and-file. His goal was to do more than just spread good will to Ford employees. He wanted his rookies to touch hands with regular people in Detroit. He wanted them to see the hardened Rouge plant that has pumped out thousands of cars and trucks over the years.

"The other day, Dominic Raiola talked about how he fell in love with the city," Schwartz said by phone from Maryland. "He said how much he loves the people and I thought it was important for these guys to experience the same feel and things like that. We did not want cameras there because we thought it would have ruined the whole dynamic of it."

Schwartz, 43, wants his rookies grounded ... "We wanted them to know who they were playing for," Schwartz said. "We wanted them to meet the people who were paying their paychecks."

I think this is just fantastic. If Schwartz handles football games as well as he's handled the other stuff so far, 0-16 will soon become a very distant memory.

Share your thoughts in The Den!

The heat is on

Terry Foster and John Niyo of the Detroit News collaborated to tell us all about the suffocating heat wave that’s coincided perfectly with the Lions’ minicamp.  There are a couple of great quotes from Jim Schwartz in there about what camp was like with the Titans: sweltering in the Tennessee heat, it really prepared them to do battle with the other teams in the AFC South. 

This can only be a positive for the Lions; the new veterans and rookies need to be pushed as hard as possible.  The roster turnover has been extensive—outside of OLB Ernie Sims, and DEs Cliff Avril and Dewayne White, every defensive starter has been replaced.  Similarly, at least two--and as many as four--offensive line starting spots are up for grabs.  For now, Jim Schwartz has even dispensed with the depth chart entirely.  With every position up in the air, and so few players having any history here, it’s almost impossible to have a sense of team—even seven-year-vet Nick Harris says he feels like a stranger.  It’s all about putting pressure on the veterans—holdovers and newcomers alike--to perform their best, and evaluating the rookies against the fiercest possible competition. It’s in the figurative heat and pressure of these competitive flames, and literal heat and pressure of the sweltering summer sun, that this team will be forged.

To expect the Lions to make up for a decade of constant turnover in one summer, and play like a team that's had a decade of continuity is expecting too much.  However, at the very least, two-a-days in a pressure cooker will reveal who can stand up to the heat, and who can’t.

Discuss it here, in The Den!