LIONS OFFENSIVE LINE COACH GEORGE YARNO
On T Jason Fox: "Well, we're excited about Jason. He's a tackle, he's tall, four-year starter, played right tackle, left tackle, played some tight end in unbalance and stuff like that, so he's got some versatility. Extremely smart, team captain and all of those things. He's coming off of a knee and had some knee surgery at the end of the season. He's progressed really well and we feel by camp he'll be ready to go. I think he's someone that will really help us."
On whether he sees Fox as more of a left or right tackle: "I think he can play either tackle and I also think he can play guard. He's a little tall, but he bends well and he's extremely intelligent. I think he'll be able to adapt to just about any position."
On whether he played mostly left tackle in college: "He played mostly left, but he did play some right and he also was the tight end in unbalance, so he'd flop from one side to the other; so he's played on both sides last year. His junior year he played really well and he was hampered kind of by an injury this year, which he had surgery on his knee."
On whether he's a guy that needs to hit the weight room: "Well yeah, he's long-leveraged, he's '6-6.5" and yeah he needs to mature, but most 23 year olds do. There's a process involved in this and I'm excited to get him because he fits the criteria that we set for an offensive lineman, so I think he's going to develop into a really good player."
On whether he says that in regards to his size and versatility: "And toughness, intelligence, all of those intangible things, he's off the charts on those."
On where he'll start out here: "He'll start off on both tackles. He'll rotate both tackles: left and right and see where it goes from there. I think with his injury and everything it will take him some time before he's ready to go. We're looking at him kind of as the third tackle right now and see where the competition will go from there."
On what his injury was: "A patella tendon. It wasn't a structural thing. He had been fighting it actually through his whole college career and played with it his senior year and you can see him limping on the film, but he didn't miss a play. He's an extremely tough young man. You'd have to ask the trainers, but it basically involved the patella tendon and they corrected it and everything has gone according to plan in his rehab."
On whether he had the surgery after the season: "I think he did it after the season, but he missed the bowl game. You'd have to check that for sure, but I'm pretty sure he did it right when the season was over, he had the surgery."
On whether they went to Miami to see him workout: "We were actually scheduled to go, but he pulled his hamstring, so we didn't go down. We interviewed him at the combine and we've talked to him several times. We didn't actually go down to his workout because he didn't have one."
On whether Fox came for a visit: "No, he did not."
On whether Fox will be able to do anything this weekend: "Well, we'll just see how he is. He told me that he felt really good and he was close to 100 percent, but you know, he's all excited and everything. We want to make sure that we have him in the fall, not in the spring. Our trainers will look at him and determine what he can and can't do and we'll get a plan and stick to it. He can learn a lot and lift and do all of those things through the OTA's. If he can't participate, that's ok too. This is a long haul here, we're not expecting him to come in and be the guy from day one."
On how well he was able to get to know Fox: "Well, the interview at the combine, talking to him on the phone, talking to people that know him, talking to the people at Miami - you get a feel for a kid. You can really get a feel for a kid pretty quickly when you talk to him about football and life and stuff like that. I personally had a really good feel for him from the time that I first started talking to him. Very, very intelligent young man, very focused, hard working, self-motivated and those are all good things."
On how important it was to get a young offensive tackle: "I think it was really important. Obviously we all felt that way because we ended up drafting one. You need young offensive lineman to develop in your program as you go along because there's five positions and stability is nice, but you also have to have depth and you have to have development. Jeff (Backus) is almost 33 years old and he's played a lot of football, he's not going to play forever, so somebody that can step in eventually and take his spot when he's done playing, you've got to groom those guys. You can't just pull one out of your hat. I feel good about this. I think it's really good to have a young guy that has a lot of ability that can grow into being a good player."
MEDIA CONFERENCE CALL WITH LIONS T JASON FOXOn how he felt his knee injury affected his draft status: "It probably did affect it a little bit, but that was part of the process. My agent Drew (Rosenhaus) told me about how it was going to affect me, but you know what, I went in the fourth round and it could have hurt me worse. I'm still getting an opportunity to play in the league which is a lifelong dream of mine so I can't really complain. I feel really blessed to be taken by the Lions and have an opportunity to play in the National Football League."
On what the injury was and when he had the procedure: "It was actually an injury that I played with all year. Then I just had to get my knee cleaned out after the season."
On whether he played in the bowl game: "No, no sir."
On whether he had the procedure right after the season because he knew he needed to get healthy for the draft: "Yeah, that's essentially what it was. It was a collective decision with our medical staff and our coaches. They said that, 'you've played with the injury all season and we appreciate that and it's now time that you need to look out for your future; you'll get an extra month of rehab and recovery if you get the surgery right now.' I went with their decision."
On what his timetable for his recovery and where does he feel most comfortable on the field: "I feel like I'm really far along in the process; I'm probably right at or close to 100-percent. So I feel like I'm not going to miss any time and that I can come in and compete right away.
"Wherever they want me to play is where I'll play. Obviously I started at left tackle the last three years, but my freshman year, I played some right tackle. With Coach (Mark) Whipple's offense my senior year, we did a lot of tackle-over and unbalanced sets, so I feel comfortable in playing both sides. If they want to stick me inside, then I'll do that too. Wherever they want me to play is where I'll play."
On whether he was surprised the Lions drafted him after not bringing him in for a pre-draft visit: "You know what? They showed a lot of interest in me. I talked to them several times, so I knew there was an interest, so I wasn't totally surprised. When they pulled the trigger, I was as happy as can be."
On whether he felt a connection with Lions Offensive Line Coach George Yarno: "Yeah - I met with him at the combine and talked to him a couple other times. I think we got started off on the right foot. He wanted to quiz me and get to know me a little bit, but I think he thought that I'm a good fit for their system and now I'm going to have my opportunity with him."
On what he thinks he needs to do to develop and progress to the next level: "Just continue to work on technique. I don't think I have any overbearing weaknesses; I don't think I have a missing part of my game. I just always want to look to continue to improve with technique and leverage and playing with good pad level and I'm just going to continue to work with that."
On how big he is now and how big he thinks he can get: "I'm about 6-7 (and weigh) 310 pounds. I can control my weight pretty easily so, whatever they want me to be and however big they want me to get, that's where I'll be."
On whether he can talk about the issue he had with his irregular heartbeat: "I would really prefer not to get into that if that's okay."
On him having missed a game because of the irregular heartbeat: "It was just a fluke thing. I've been totally cleared. I've been back for several stress tests. They just said it was a one-day thing and I passed all the tests with flying colors and told it will never happen again."
On whether it was irregular or rapid: "It was irregular."
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