Draft leftovers
A couple leftovers from the press conference to introduce Saturday draft picks Matthew Stafford, Brandon Pettigrew and Louis Delmas while we wait for the Lions' last pick, and coach Jim Schwartz's final draft-day thoughts:
Schwartz said Pettigrew is NFL-ready right now and pointed to his most famous game against Texas, when he manhandled defensive end Brian Orakpo, who went 13th overall to the Redskins. One of the things that sort of put him over the hump for us was we watched the Texas game and Brandon did a very good job of blocking Orakpo, and we said that's what he's going to be looking at in the NFL, that's what he's going to be blocking, Schwartz said. Never seen a guy push guys off the radar screen, push guys off the film as much as him, and we're really excited about what he can add to our offense.
Orakpo will get a chance for revenge in Week 3 when the Redskins visit Ford Field.
Stafford said he doesn't think of himself as any sort of franchise savior. There's no way one guy can turn it around, he said. He also said he'll do his best to win over the fans who booed his selection. That comes with playing and winning football games, he said. Winning solves a lot of problems and there's a bunch of steps that go into that and hopefully we can turn it around, start winning some games here and it could be an exciting time.
Schwartz on Louis Delmas: We've probably gotten about 10 calls today from different people around the league said, 'Damn, you took our guy.' You don't have to watch very long on film to see what kind of player he is. A multidimensional player, a guy that has some corner in his background, he's got great range against the pass, he's got great instincts and absolutely brings it in the run game. A guy that wants to make the play. And there's a difference when you talk about guys in the secondary that are willing to tackle and guys that want to tackle. And you'll see that immediately when you watch it on tape.
Labels: Brandon Orakpo, Brandon Pettigrew, Detroit Lions, Jim Schwartz, Louis Delmas, Matthew Stafford
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