Before this year’s draft, Penei Sewell described himself as someone who comes off the ball with “violent intentions” and that helped convince the Lions to take him with the seventh overall pick.
Sewell has been installed as the team’s right tackle, but he had to keep those violent intentions under wraps for quite a while. Sewell opted out of playing for Oregon last season and the Lions’ offseason program didn’t allow for contact. The same was true of the opening days of training camp, but the pads went on for the first time Tuesday.
Sewell said putting them on and hitting the field was “like when you’re out in the desert and you take that first sip of water.”
“To be out there again, to strap it on, to put the helmet back on again, it’s a feeling that I forgot about,” Sewell said, via Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press. “It’s something that I’ve been craving for a minute that I didn’t know I was craving.”
Hopes are high for what a padded Sewell will mean for the offense during his rookie season and the Lions’ enthusiasm is unlikely to be dimmed now that they’ve actually had a chance to see him in action.