October 20, 2009

This is a good week for us to have a bye. This week we have our regular Tuesday off, but then we have to go in and practice on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Friday we’ll get out early, about 12 or 12:30, and then we don’t have to report until next Tuesday so a lot of us are getting out of town.

I’ll probably go to Chicago for a couple days to see my best friend and do some shopping, then go down to Charlotte to see my girlfriend. Chicago has a lot of exclusive stores, a lot of great shoes, shops for certain kinds of clothes. I’m into that.

I like jeans. For some reason I’ve always been fascinated by jeans and shoes. Even in college I always liked jeans and now I can afford some nice ones, so I’ll check that out while I’m in Chicago. For shoes, I’m a big fan of Nike Air Force 1. Plus I have a deal with Nike so they can hook me up. And in Chicago you can get custom-made ones at the Niketown there.

Like I said, this bye week is definitely coming at a good time for us. We’re a little thin on the defensive line, maybe by our next game we’ll get some guys healthy and get everyone back.

We still have to stay focused in, though. This week is also all about making corrections and focusing on ourselves. Fixing the small things can be huge for us, we have to get in there and make the corrections we need to make to get on track.

I thought I played well against Green Bay, any game I get a sack, I’m happy. But we couldn’t pull out the win, so that makes it kind of tough.

Cliff Avril is a defensive end for the Detroit Lions. His blog for www.playerpress.com
runs at www.avril92.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/cliffavril.