Detroit Lions assistant coaches meet with the media | September 2, 2025

Detroit Lions assistant coaches meet with the media | September 2, 2025

afternoon. If it’s afternoon, I’m not sure, but it’s good to, you know, I don’t know if it’s 4:00 a.m. or 11:00 a.m. or noon or we’re just working. It’s that time. I do know it is the first day of school and the first day of uh practice. So, uh a lot of excitement, a lot of joy about moving into a new season, new opportunity. Uh but also, we we we know that we have a lot of tests to pass as we we kind of move forward and and and whatever we’ve done in the past, we don’t get grades for that. So, we’re really happy to get started again. Scotty, can you maybe help us wrap our head around um Jameson’s improvement this off seasonason? I I think we’ve all seen on the the field the the different uh routes that he’s running, particularly the comeback stuff. Um how much of that was just assignments you kind of gave him and and maybe just him going out on his own and and turning some kind of corner? Yeah, I think he he started to turn a corner um a long time ago. I can’t really put but you could see it. You know, you almost around the corner, almost around the corner. And then this offseason where I think he grew the most is um you know, I really talked to him about strength and and getting better and stronger in his lower quarters and the changing his his body. Even if you don’t change weight wise, you can change strength-wise. And and he’s gotten a lot stronger. Uh and probably there was a couple of carrots dangled to get stronger. To be able to get out of those breaks, you got to have, you know, stronger lower quarters. And man, he he came back and I could immediately see the difference in his body type, but also his movement skills. It became not just explosive, but it became a point where now I can go be explosive and still stop on a dime. If you’ve watched him, his progression has been his ability to stop and start or start and stop. Either way you look at it, he’s he’s done a good job with that. Change of direction for him has always kind of been one of the things he could do just naturally in his routes. But when you when you’re able to slam on brakes and when you be able to turn at the top with lower pad level and some of the details he’s doing with his arms and keeping them tighter and running through cuts, all you got to do is ask. Right now, he’s in that mode of where he is ascending and he’s taking the right steps, but he has to do it every, you know, every single day. But he’s very receptive and his body more than anything. I think he’s I think he’s tried to do what we’ve asked him to do, but now his body is physically in a spot where when he calls on it, it can respond. A lot of rookies over your your coaching career. I’m just curious, what is it about Isaac that that has made him get to a point where you guys feel pretty confident about his ability to to not only help you on offense, but special teams as well? What was it about his camp or just maybe his demeanor that that gave you guys an indication that boy, I think he can help us pretty early? You know, one thing, he’s resilient. It’s a tough room. I’ll say that like starting with me. So, as soon as you come in as a rookie, uh especially at that position, um you know, there’s sometimes some lofty expectations that are put on you, but we take those off really quickly when you come into the room because of the people that we have in the room. and not only the guys that I’ve coached, but the guys that I’m currently coaching now. Uh so the one thing that we saw every day is no matter what we did to him to make him understand that’s not good enough, that’s not good enough, he kept correcting it. And he continues to pass the next test, right? And it was uh you know, he has a just a tremendous amount, you know, of humility uh without being humiliated even like he just came in and did his job. And what we would see is he would take it from, you know, the meeting room to the walkth through to the individual drills to the practice tape. And when he failed in practice, you know, he very rarely failed again in that same detail. So that lets us know, first of all, he cares, but it lets us know he’s in his playbook. Uh when you’re in your playbook, you’re going to get the respect of the people in the room. And and then when your mental errors are low, you get the respect of the player people in the room. You know, a lot of other people on the outside, they see playmaking and they think that’s it. Well, you got to be in the right spot, especially now, uh, when when when the lights are truly on. Back to Jameson for a quick sec. Uh, how much of that is your attention to detail, you know, pointing out some of those things? I mean, sometimes as a player, you don’t know what you don’t know, you know? So, the arms being tight or the the importance of the lower body strength, is that something that he just maybe didn’t grasp before? You know, I think once you’ve heard it, like it’s like talking to anybody. You can maybe say it once or twice, but when you’re leading with that constantly, constantly, constantly, it’s going to have some type of an effect on you. So, the coaching is definitely a part of it. But until the player is ready to receive it and go do it. Uh, so I always like putting it on the players. I I think that when they’re like, he’s had good coaches before, you know, he’s there’s no question about that. And it’s just a point of when the player gets ready now, it’s up to the coach to get that person to a point of where they’re ready. Uh but when the player gets ready and it starts happening and all they got to do is see it work on tape one time, you know, I can remember seeing him run uh what we would call a snap route or some other people would call it different thing, hinges. Uh and he realized that at the top he was able to just drop his weight without having four or five extra steps. Then we started to see him run that route in one-on- ones more and more, which is one of the harder routes because you’re going to have an attached defender. So once the player’s ready to receive it, and we do have to point out those things even when they’re great players because we’re trying to refine greatness constantly. You saw that this summer or this offseason. Saw that route work for him then. Yes. Yes. It just it just became a part of now once he sees it work and we already thought that we could get him strong enough there. Now it becomes not only a part of what he does, but it’s also a way that he can help us in ways that he did not. Scotty, when you were uh scouting wide receivers around the draft, what stood out to you about Matthew Golden? uh you know, tremendous speed u to begin with. I thought he was very fluid. Uh he had the ability to sink his his weight and he could catch the ball on the move. I thought is one of the things that when when a player can really catch it without slowing down or they can pluck it and go, being quick to the tuck is what I like to call it. The quicker you are to the tuck, the yards after catch happen. People think about that in in a sense of a world of explosives and big plays. Not me. I I kind of think of that in the sense of keeping the drive going. So when you have a fast guy that can pluck, not only can he keep the drive going, but now you get the explosive part after that. So it’s a com it’s a combination of that that skill and that speed, but able to being able to, you know, catch it on the move. And then just being able to also come into a situation uh where he hadn’t been there uh the whole time and beat great players and also compete every day. And then there’s so many guys that were there to make plays. When he got his opportunity to make plays, it stood out. Scotty, so much attention and so much attention in your room is paid to Saint and and J Mo and even Tesla now. Do you feel like Khalif’s in a spot to kind of remind everyone this season just how valuable he can be to this offense? Yeah, I think we’re in the building. I think we’re completely reminded after the the training camp he just had uh in the spring he just had. It was probably one of the more consistent springs uh that we’ve seen at the wide receiver position of being here and being detailed, his his catch totarget ratio. Um his one-on-one wins, his ability to separate and tight coverage, his ability to make plays down the field. Uh so, you know, we’re tracking this a little bit different maybe than everybody else. Kind of we’re just trying to make sure that we get the upper echelon out of each player. And he is playing closer to his roof uh now than he was before. So we we really like where he is and hopefully he can he can have a a tremendous role in helping us this year. Coach, you mentioned the test in Green Bay. Um what kind of test did the secondary here give your receivers over the training over this whole training camp? Yeah, we we set it up to be as rugged as it possibly can be. Uh one of the things that I really like with our secondary did is they beat us up at the line of scrimmage. They roughed us up at the line of scrimmage. They held us. They grabbed us everything right at the edge of legality. a lot of it past uh that point. You hear me to Shay? I hope you hope you’re listening, Shay. All right. So, uh that that that challenge just every day we had to come to work every single day. Like when there was situations to where you are in one-on-one battles uh all the time because we were in so many one-on-one battles at every position at the slot position, at the two exterior positions. Somebody has to win every single play. Uh, and it’s not going to be, you know, we’re giving up just a zone catch here or a curl catch here. Everything that we did was contested. So, we got better and sharper in our routes, but we also got better when we couldn’t separate it making contested catches. It was it it was the best competition uh at the receiver and DB position all year consistently all camp. So, we were happy about that. Scotty, time for two more, please. When when Brad uh formed the roster, it went down to 50 and he said 50 guys deserve to make this team. I think a lot of us saw Jackson Meeks and thought maybe he was on that that that border. A lot of good plays in practice, obviously a couple good games. What What does he have to do? Where does he have to grow to to take that step to be deserving of a roster spot in this league? Man, I think he’s deserving, right? Like in this league, I think he’s a he’s a player that can play and play at a high level. You know, where we are as a program, right, is is is probably a great determining factor for some of that. We we have gotten to a point with Dan uh and Brad to where we’ve I think we’ve done just about as best job I’ve been around of creating that echelon where such so heavy at the top that the top and the middle are now close too. So breaking into that for anybody can be tough. What I’ll say to him though is that his time is coming. You know you you got to be ready when your time comes and it is coming. I feel it. I think that you know there’s no holding him out of becoming a great player in this league. Just be ready Mixie. just be ready. Where do you see where do you see uh Jir Gibbs’s evolution as a receiver and obviously he was working a lot with you guys and individuals? I mean uh how is he kind of evolved and what what could he possibly do there out wide even? Yeah, the more he stays around Saint the better he’ll be. Okay, so just just watch Saint and do what Saint does. The truth is it that is the case. But a lot like what I was talking about with Golden, if you can put him in situations to where he can get a little quicker to the tuck with the football and he’s a guy that can catch it on the move, not only will it extend, make explosives, but it’ll extend these plays. So, we can see him a lot of different places. I think everybody in here knows he’s physically talented enough to do everything that the receiver position can do. Uh, but now it’s you have to have the knowledge and what they have of just a lifelong feeling of route running. You know, is the nickel buzzing? Is the nickel stand over the top of me? Is it covered too? So, I got to get him thinking on the run a little bit quicker when he’s at the receiver position, which he’s done a good job. And I think that’s the next point, just seeing it and and experiencing it enough more. Couple of months ago when you know Nolan last a couple months ago when you made your transition to the receivers, you talked about your desire to get back to the passing game now after being with them for a couple months. I mean, you’ve been around these guys for the past couple years, but working with them more closely for the past couple of months. What have you learned about this group, man? Relationships. these guys like you can be close to someone but until you’re in the room with them all of us that have you know brothers uh that have lived in a room where you got two brothers in a room or you got a brother in this room and a brother in that room you can be tight but when you when you live together and it’s one of the reasons why my little boys stay in the same room right now all they have is each other so we’re in the same room and now we know that like they’re depending on me I’m depending on them so the level of accountability is there what I didn’t understand about these guys though is just how truly you know, special they were as it comes to detail and hard work and that’s driven by Saints, driven by Khalif, it’s driven by, you know, Whimo. Uh, but but that’s something even that I, you know, I didn’t know about them. I felt like the backs were is is as good as they possibly can be. And then now you realize why our building truly is the way that it is. We got guys all over the building, the O line, our linebackers, our secondary, our D line that are just just so attentive to detail and they play hard, extremely hard. you’re entering your uh third season as sorry as a assistant head coach. What kind of uh tools and skills has that added to your uh your your kit? Man, I tell you um coming in here I probably had three hats. Uh now I probably got like, you know, 25 hats. A lot of them to cover up the hair that I’ve lost since um learning some of the things that I’ve learned. And it’s just the big picture. like you can get so involved when you’re in a room that you can’t see the building, right? So, what Dan has given me the ability to do since I got here is to see the building, not just from an offensive standpoint, but from a defensive standpoint and also administrative standpoint. So, that’s one of the things that you got I got to say thank you to him uh for giving me the opportunity and not just giving me the title, right? There’s two different things. There’s a title and then there’s the opportunity that creates your ability to see it from a head coach’s position and that’s what he’s been able to do for me. How you guys doing? Well, no questions. I’m good. We got practice. Take us through the the center swap and put Graham there for now looks like the season and and what went into that. Uh you know what I mean throughout his career that’s he’s been a center guard. Uh really at the end of the day, he’s a football player, O lineman, and uh he’s a smart player on that. Uh early on we got Tate reps there. I think that’s one of the quickest ways to learn an offense and grow. uh is if you can do it. And he he did a tremendous job in the spring, but at the end of the day, we felt a little bit better with Graham going in there and putting Tate back at guard. That’s what he did for four years in college and or five years, you know. So, um that’s that’s really what it was. It wasn’t he wasn’t playing back or anything like that. But Grant’s been a natural center in this league, very smart player, dependable player. Um, you know, so having him in the room over the years along with like Frank, it’s, you know, having two coaches on the field when he was here. They always say a player makes his biggest leap from year one to year two. I’m just curious what you’ve seen in in Christian. Every time we’ve talked to Dan, he’s you seem pretty, you know, confident about his ability, the camp that he had. Just curious your perspective of the camp that he had and just how excited you are for him going into year two. Uh, I think just being around the whole time has been a, you know, better for us, you know, like because he missed all camp last year and then he, you know, really jumped in later in the year and had to work his way back in. But just being around, being able to train. Um, he’s done a great job. He’s got a great football IQ. You guys hear people talk about FI FBI, all that football IQ is is really, it all started in college, I think, with their guys there, you know, Boston College at the time. So, um, um, so he’s he’s been great. He’s grown. He’s still learning. I remind him he’s a rookie still, you know, by standards. He hasn’t had enough games in the second year. But, uh, he’s he’s he’s grown as a player. Um, but he sees the field, uh, big picture, which is always a great thing when you’re a young player if you can see the whole picture and just not, hey, this is my job. This is my job. But he can focus on a little bit more than just, hey, I got to block the three technique or two two technique this week. So, um, but we’ll see. is a big challenge for all of us this week and for him and and see how he goes. Quarterbacks are most susceptible obviously to pressure up the middle. I mean given the changes that have happened on the interior, how confident are you in the pass protection in that sector? Um, you know, it’s always protect inside out. Um, even, you know, I always say the quickest way to the quarterbacks through the A gap, you know. Uh, so, uh, I feel good. We we get challenged every week. You know, Shep did a good job this year, training camp, OTAAS. We get challenged every day with those guys um with their pressures, with their guys up front. Um so, I think as long as we stay technically sound and do our job and fundamentally sound, we’ll be fine. You know, the rules are rules. Um you know, we’re going to see something maybe new that they have this week, you know, always game one. What’s the new wrinkle for everybody? And um but you know, you stick with your rules and and stay sound and don’t always remind these guys. You know, Graham’s really our center has never chased ghost either and stuff like that and just stay with it and we can block everything cuz all our plays, all our protections, all our run games, they have rules and they could line up in anything they want to do. Something they’ve never shown last year or, you know, never shown at all, but rules take play place and and just trust what they’ve been doing, you know, training along those lines. I mean, you know, Mike at Dallas was moved around a lot. I mean, he’s a unique uh player in that regard. I mean, lining up sometimes in the middle. I mean, too. I mean, can I mean, do you anticipate that I mean, they’re going to use him in a similar fashion or um given the fact that he doesn’t have many reps though kind of going into this? Again, I think the guy’s trained his whole career to play football. So, don’t you know, it’s he’s got a different jersey on. Um, you know, we’re anticipating him to play now. How many reps that is, I mean, that’s on those guys in Green Bay and really pray himself. Um he is a a good player, you know, he can cause havoc. When he was in Dallas, he can cause havoc. Um they definitely moved him around there. I would anticipate we’re same way. We have rules and when they want to move guys or, you know, stuff like that, we you know, we we we have certain rules we follow and um he definitely can be a force off the edge or in the middle when they stand up. when he was in Dallas rushing through the middle of the a you know a gap. Um but he he can be a special player but um you know we’ve instead of now facing them once a year I feel like every year we’ve played Dallas now we get them twice a year and and they have a lot of good players you know can’t forget about Gary on the edge you know um Walker in the middle at linebacker they have a lot of good pieces you know Kenny Clark for years is now down there you know and some guys are like oh we don’t have to see him oh we play Dallas again later this year you know but he was a heck of a force in the middle and they gotten a little bit younger inside um and but Those young guys have gotten better every year, too. All those young guys. And I’m sure they’ve learned a lot from losing uh Kenny inside. He was that leader inside. So, but you know, leadership kind of moves and it’s probably not, you know, outside, you know, as their leaders on defense. So, they all every everybody presents challenges. Parson’s no different. He he’s a challenge as he can line up over Paneet, Decker, Graham, free technique. We’ll see how they want to use them. Um, and it’s really about how quickly he picks up their system and what do they want to do. But at the end of the day, you know, we’ve we face him a lot and he he he has caused some issues for us and we’ve also gotten the best of him, too. You know, you but he’s gotten the best of us, too, you know, so it’s a battle over there. So, it’s exciting. You know, he got there. I saw the, you know, trade. I just told our guys, hey, we we were going to block him later in the year. Now, we get him twice a year. Go back to Glasgow for a minute. You talked about him, you know, never chasing ghosts. And I mean his intelligence kind of speaks for itself. But maybe you can just expand on that a little bit. The the experience that he has being a veteran, how much that just settles everything down in terms of the IDs. I think it settles the whole offense down. Uh confidence. It probably starts sometimes you say with the quarterbacks, right? They know somebody in front of them can control it. Take take charge. That’s what you want. And uh you know, so Golf and him are always on the same page. um you know anytime somebody had to go down he always moved right back in there at center you know and sometimes you know what’s your best five or six is it better to move two parts you know so he just calm everybody down and um just go with your rules like I said it’s a first game of the season there’s going to be something maybe new that we’re not prepared for to see and just don’t chase it as long as we’re all on that same page we can make it right you know so um but he he’s a calming presence for everybody um guys can you know his note not note takingaking is is one of the best I’ve been around. And um you know, he really keeps all his old notebooks from last year, they’re still stacked up there. So like all his Green Bay notes from last year, he’s already referencing, oh well, we did this last year. Are we doing this again? You know, and they’re so detailed out um and he keeps them there for the year, you know. That’s how him and I would say Ragna where their boat books all stayed there for the years and they just keep, you know, keep it going like a library for them. So but he’s he’s smart player. He’s been in the league for a long time. Year 10, I believe this is for him. And he he’s done it all from right guard, center to left guard. So, I’m glad he’s we slid him back in there. And like I said, Tate was doing great, though. Honestly, he was doing great. And we have a lot we got younger, which is good for us, too. Your perspective, um, what is this year about for Giovani Manu? If everything goes according to plan, what can we expect from his growth over the next few months? Uh, you know, he’s just every day he’s trying to get better. Um, I would say he’s come a long ways from last year. Um, he’s not to where we want him to be yet and he’s not where he wants to be yet, but the good thing about him is he he works hard at it. It’s not it’s not perfect. The thing is a lot of people point out always the glaring uh mistakes and that’s what O line, you know, especially pass can’t we get beat, there’s nobody saving us normally. It’s just not going to be the case. You know, maybe the ball gets out in time, but we still got beat. there’s nobody uh you know we can’t there’s not a back just standing back there waiting for us to get beat and help us out. So that’s where it is. He’s just being the consistency and he’s gotten more consistent and you know in time you know we’re going to have to count on him somewhere down the line here you know um I think we’re going to have to count on all the guys that we have in our building here you know and that nice thing about the NFL now there’s that practice squad and you keeps on the practice squad um so you know you got guys like Dan Skipper still here and those guys we can lean on Jamarco but uh I think Gio when his time’s called he’s going to be ready to play for us and he’s gotten better you and and we’re looking forward to him to be contributing this year. Just mentioned Jamarco, he’s been in your program for a year. What what did he do to kind of claim that that swing spot for you this off seasonason? Uh you know uh unfortunately you can’t put everybody on the roster. So um he he he was very consistent and again he was one of the guys that came in late, was here all off season and uh he was very consistent at playing um either tackle spot and um you know he’s he’s earned it. I think everybody in this building, practice squad or roster, earned their right to be here. It’s not a charity. Coach isn’t going to hand it out. We’re not going to hand it out. But he went and he earned that spot. And you know, if you look at our roster, how it’s compiled, there’s nine guys on the roster for the O line. So I always tell those guys every year when we start this training camp or the process is, man, my job is get us right, Detroit Lines right, you guys. But man, get you a job. If it’s not here, it’s with 31 other teams and hopefully on a roster somewhere. Love to have them all back. back in which we were able to keep a lot of guys back on practice squad. But those guys that are in that, you know, holding um we’re going to need to need him. We’re going to need Skip. We need Nice, you know, with those guys. Said he wanted to get bigger and stronger this off season. Did you see that? Did it and did it show up? And I guess how does a guy like him get better? Uh he every day he’s he’s training. He he’s a special guy. He’s coaching. I don’t know if anybody noticed, but even in preseason games when he’s not playing, he made sure he had an earpiece and he got the play call and he got to the iPads before I got to him and he’s already coaching the guys. So, as a player, he’s always coaching and that’s his goal is always to be um you know, he’s a good player. He’s a great player at times, too. He wants to be great and and he has that drive to be great and he knows he’s not perfect. And that’s what’s fun to coach him about. Like yesterday, we had practice not in pads. Uh we worked a couple combinations, he didn’t feel right. He was like, “No, I need to go again. I need to go again.” And he went three or four times in a row, you know, where other players might be like, “I’ll get it later.” You know, that’s what makes him great. Like today, watching in and in in there, he’s watching individual drills. He’s watching himself on his sets, his pass sets, and this is individual. This isn’t even going against anybody actually hitting a mid ball, but he’s watching himself. That’s what makes him special. So bigger and stronger. I don’t know how much stronger you can get, but you’re always growing and maturing. but he’s he’s in a great spot and I love being where he’s at as a player and also as a mentor to these guys. I think versatility is so important particularly for for backups. I’m just curious what what goes into deciding whether a guy can be a center. A guy like Coyote or Moody like why why don’t those guys do center at this stage of their career? Is it too big of a challenge? Uh Yod is my emergency tackle, center, left tackle. I tell him that all the time. Um he’s actually done it in practice one time last year. We were down so many bodies. I’m like, “Hey, you’re going to play scout team center.” And he he did he goes, “Wow, it’s not as easy as I thought it was.” But um you for us at least center position, you got to the the smarts, the thinking, the quick thinking. Um there’s that. That’s probably number one for us. But then the the agile, the there’s a lot of stuff bodywise. You know, you’re closer to the ball. Can you reach shades in this league? That’s one of the hardest things to do. Can you reach a two eye? Can you reach those shades? But the thinking, can I get snap? Can I process fast enough? And guys that can process fast enough and the picture changes. How quickly you can process it. It’s just like a quarterback. Can I process it right before the snap, make the great calls, um, you got to be able to do that. And if you can’t do that, and normally it’s hard to play center in this league, anywhere across the the league, you know, and that’s where sometimes, you know, not saying they just can’t be guards cuz Yodi is a very smart player. He could process things, but he’s best suited for us being guard, swing tackle, but I joke with him, he has taken snaps for me, but he could process. But being a center, you got to be able to process fast and and sometimes you see us break the huddle very fast and get up there and make a call and go. Well, you got to process and see it all big picture-wise. So, that’s that’s the tough thing is in the offseason or talking to any rookies and and guys like Tate, I mean, his interview was great. he could process, put him under pressure, how quick he can fire fire it out. If you install something, how fast they get it back to you. If they got to think, I joke with them all the time, oh, delay a game, time out, you know, but make you guys think fast. And that’s what centers have to be able to do. Just like Jared dropping back, it’s got to distinguish cover two, cover three, you know, fire zone, all this.

Hear from Detroit Lions Assistant Head Coach/Wide Receivers coach Scottie Montgomery and Run Game Coordinator/Offensive Line Hank Fraley as they meet with the media at the Meijer Performance Center on September 2, 2025.

0:00-12:45 – Scottie Montgomery
12:46-25:57 – Hank Fraley

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