Sports Illustrated’s Peter King, who writes at MMQB.si.com, visited Detroit training camp last week and saw what I’ve seen all spring and through the first weeks of camp.



Now he has high praise for the Detroit Lions and thinks they could be the NFC’s surprise team.



In his MMQB column published today (Monday), he wrote: “All along, I’ve had this thought that Minnesota would be my surprise team of the NFC. Then I came to Allen Park, Mich., to watch the Lions practice, and saw rookie back Ameer Abdullah run through everyone on defense, and watched one of the two or three most intense practices of our tour, and saw a healthy Calvin Johnson shred the defense like the pre-ankle-injury days. And I imagine that Caraun Reid and others we’ve never heard of can play well enough in the middle of the defensive line to soften the death blow of losing Ndamukong Suh.’’




He’s also changed his mind about Suh. Weeks/months ago he didn’t think the Lions could handle Suh’s loss. He also talked to Stafford about the Packers. Good stuff.

Always interesting to get the perspective of a veteran writer who has been to several training camps.

Brady the golden

King is a good guy too — known for his love of golden retrievers. So when he stopped in the media work room that day I showed him photos of my golden Brady who I adopted 11 months ago after my neighbor found him sitting in a park. 

Honestly, he sat down and wanted to hear the whole story. I guess it’s better to talk about Brady the golden than Brady and Deflategate. 

(Follow @PaulaPasche on Twitter. Pre-order her new book “Game of My Life Detroit Lions” which will be be published in October on Amazon.com. Also order her book,  “100 Things Lions Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die’’ here.)