Without a quarterback at rookie minicamp, Dan Campbell had some Lions assistants step in
The Lions made one of the biggest trades of the off season when they swapped Matthew Stafford for Rams quarterback Jared Goff to lead the team into the future under Dan Campbell and his staff.
With two other veteran quarterbacks on the roster in Tim Boyle and David Blough, the Lions felt comfortable enough with their quarterback situation that they didn't feel the need to bring in any rookie quarterbacks to work out during their three-day rookie minicamp.
No quarterbacks there to throw the ball to some young receivers, or to hand the ball off to young running backs they wanted a closer look at led to an interesting situation.
To remedy that, Campbell called on some of his staff members to step in as quarterbacks for a few days, Benjamin Raven of MLive points out.
Luckily for those in attendance at the rookie minicamp, the Lions quarterbacks coach is NFL veteran Mark Brunell (who enjoyed a lengthy NFL career from 1993-2011, most notably as the starting quarterback for the Jaguars from 1995-2003), and Antwaan Randle El, who enjoyed a solid NFL career after moving to receiver after finishing sixth in the Heisman voting his senior year rewriting the record books as a quarterback at Indiana, is also on staff as the receivers coach.
Tanner Engstrand, a former San Diego State quarterback who is now an offensive quality control coach with the team, also impressed coaches and rookies while getting some throws in.
Campbell and the staff instead decided to use the spot or two that would have gone to a tryout quarterback to bring in a player at a position of need, like tight end or corner.
"We feel like we’re in a good spot there. With that, that would have meant that we would have had to sign a tryout player as a quarterback."
"There’s nothing wrong with that to get through a practice, but there again, we didn’t feel like we were going to do traditional practices where you’re doing an actual team. With that, why waste one of those spots on somebody that we knew wasn’t going to be here? We would rather use one of those spots and let’s bring in a tight end, let’s bring in a defensive back, let’s bring in a corner. Let’s get eyes on somebody we think can make this roster."
Last year, there seemed to be a storyline every week coming out of New York Giants camp under first-year head coach Joe Judge. This year, my early bet is on Detroit where some interesting approaches like this one will put Matt Campbell and the Lions in the spotlight.
Head here to read the full MLive piece.
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