May 30, 2009

This spring has absolutely flown by.  I have not had a free weekend to just sit at home and relax yet, but I am truly looking forward to that over the next couple of weekends before the big day.

My life has been consumed with mostly football, and any free time has then gone to my wedding plans and now the charity golf outing that I will partner on with Cystic Fibrosis.  

Football has been as good as I could have hoped considering the situation I find myself in.  I think it has to do with the fact that I enjoy just going to work now on a daily basis.  My first two years I could not have said that and meant it, but now I really do.  The offense is great, my coaches actually coach and teach, and I feel as if I am constantly learning.  

We are on the back side of the mountain as far as the off-season program is concerned, but still have four more OTA's and a mini-camp to look forward to.  Our offense has been installed for the most part at this point, and now it is just a matter of fine tuning things and running plays from different looks.  

Coach Linehan told me I would be getting plenty of reps this spring and he has definitely been a man of his word.  Before the draft I was getting one period a day with the first team and the remainder of the practice with the two's since they released my boy Drew Henson. I really hope he catches on somewhere because he was just starting to get comfortable playing football again.

That is one of the hardest things about this job, is finding good people, becoming friends, and then parting ways.  

Anyway, practice has been good, like I said earlier.  I have been studying a lot trying to improve and if I make a mistake to really learn from it and not do it again.  I feel like I have done that for the most part and have really started to get a good comfort level with all the receivers.  At first, you are trying to get a feel for all the guys you are throwing to, like which comes out of the break quick or who is going to win a one-on-one for you.  Once that starts happening you get more confidence in throwing to those guys and know who is going to make a play for you when you need it.  

With Matthew's arrival I was a little nervous to see if I would be treated differently by the coaches, but that is the farthest from what happened.  They have not changed one bit towards me and still are very encouraging.  That gives me hope that I still have a future here in Detroit, but like I have said before it is a crazy business.  As long as I continue to do what I have been doing, which is stay positive and worry only about things I have control over, then I know things will work out in the end.  

Thanks for reading, and those who might actually care to hear about my wedding plans look for that to come shortly.  Also, if you have any interest in getting involved with my golf outing in Marshall, Michigan on July 20^th, look for a blog to come very soon about that as well.

Drew Stanton is a quarterback with the Detroit Lions. His blog for www.playerpress.com runs at www.drewstanton.com. Follow him on Twitter as drewstanton.