Author: Paula Pasche

ALLEN PARK — Glover Quin returned to the field on Tuesday for the first day of the Detroit Lions’ three-day mandatory minicamp.

The Pro Bowl safety has missed the offseason workouts since they started in April, choosing to be home in Houston with his family including his wife Gladys and his three sons.

It’s all a bit of a mystery. Quin talked after Tuesday’s practice but spoke more in generalities.

When asked if he was considering retirement, he paused for several seconds before saying, “No.”

“I think every player once you get to a certain age and look in the mirror and ask yourself can you continue to play at that high of a level? But thinking about retiring was not on my mind, it was just trying to figure out how much I had left,’’ the 32-year-old Quin said.

Since he returned that mean he thinks he’s good to go.

He did say clearly one reason he had stayed away was the chance to spend more time with his family.

The pay is great in the NFL but work-life balance can be tough to achieve.

“Only thing I was contemplating was how do I spend more time with my family. That was really it. How do I spend more time with them? It’s a difficult situation, it was the main thing.,’’ Quin said. “Disconnect and give them everything I’ve got, let’s try to figure out how I can spend more time with them.’’

Five things to know about Quin:

1. Quin, who has played in 132 consecutive games, signed an extension in 2017 that ties him up with the Lions through the 2019 season. He’ll make $3.85 million this season, giving up a $250,000 workout bonus. This will be his sixth season in Detroit. He started his career with the Texans as a fourth-round pick out of New Mexico in 2009. He signed with the Lions as a free agent in 2013.

2. Even though he’s missed time while coach Matt Patricia and defensive coordinator Paul Pasqualoni are installing a new defense, no one seems too worried about Quin’s ability to learn the system. “Everybody’s trying to do the best they can to try and understand what’s going on. And certainly Glover, you know, he’ll come in and work extremely hard. Obviously, a guy that’s a great professional and a guy that’s been in contact with us the whole time,’’ Patricia said before Tuesday’s practice.

3. Quin said playing defense is playing defense. “I’ve been around long enough, I’ve learned new defenses four times in my career. I’ve had four head coaches. So I understand what it’s like, I understand the business, I understand changing in cultures,, I wasn’t really stressing myself about what it was like, what was going on,’’ said Quin who noted he didn’t really bother his teammates who were present for the offseason workouts. He said he didn’t want to be a distraction.

4. While he is in town, it’s all football. “I’m trying to soak up as much of the play book as I can. Football is football to me, I think every day, because one of the things I think He blessed me with, was a great football mind. Being able to learn and understand defenses has been fairly easy for me so I came in (Monday), got a lot thrown at me and same with practice today,’’ Quin said on Tuesday.

5. Quin said it was good to get back into the swing of things and see his teammates again. “It’s cool, being away you go through a phase where you miss the game a little bit,’’ Quin said. “That was the first time in my career that I’ve had to experience that. I’ve always been a part of offseason programs, I’ve never missed games. …  It was more for me to take a step back and kind of separate myself and give myself fully to my wife and kids and enjoy that time, but understand I still had a job to do so I had to make time for that as well. So that was good.’’ He would not say if he’ll return next week for scheduled OTAs.

ALLEN PARK >> Paul Pasqualoni set off on a career of teaching.

He started at the bottom, teaching physical education to kindergarteners through sixth-graders.

“I was like a K-6 teacher, had no intentions to ever coach in college or pro football. It’s just I wanted to be a high school coach back in my hometown, Chester, Conn. When I got the freshman job there, I felt like I had the greatest job I could ever have. I mean, this is like, ‘Wow, I’ve got the best job there is. How lucky,’’’ Pasqualoni said on Tuesday.

Since those days his football coaching career has taken him to several states and stops.

A few months ago he landed in Detroit as the Lions’ defensive coordinator under new coach Matt Patricia who worked for him when he was head coach at Syracuse.

Pasqualoni may be a long way from K-6, but in his heart he’s still a teacher.

Five things to know about the affable Pasqualoni:

1. So far all is good in his new position.  “First of all, it’s great to be here. This is a great organization. The Ford family is first class. This is a first class, really. The NFL’s first class, this is really first class. It’s great to be here,’’ Pasqualoni said. “Lot of fun to have the opportunity to work with the guys on the staff we have. We have outstanding coaches on this staff. Obviously, it’s fun to be around the energy that Coach Patricia brings, and it’s fun to be around the energy that the players here bring. There’s a lot of good players here. They’re great to work with. It’s been my pleasure to be here.”

2. His defensive philosophy appears standard. “To be smart, to be tough, that means to be able to perform at a very dependable, high level on a consistent basis. Like you’ve heard a hundred times, stop the run, try to make the quarterback uncomfortable. You’re not going to sack the guy, but there has to be in a variety of ways, discomfort created for the guy playing the quarterback position,’’ Pasqualoni said. “Whether it’s disguise, or pressure, whatever it might be. You just can’t let quarterbacks at this level operate and be comfortable, because in the end they’ll get you. In a nutshell, that’s kind of it.”

3. Patricia has said repeatedly since his arrival that the defense won’t feature just a 4-3 or 3-4 front. “We’ll have some four-man fronts, and we’ll have some three-man fronts and we’ll have a variety of stuff. It’s been very enjoyable because the players have been really terrific, and are working hard in the classroom, in the meeting room and out on the field,’’ Pasqualoni said. “And the coaching staff, the guys I have an opportunity to work with: Al Golden, and Brian Stewart, Bo Davis, the support staff here, they’re just outstanding coaches. So, it’s been very, very, very good.”

4. He loves this time of year because he draws on his teaching background. “You know, I’ve always thought this about this time of year—whether I was a high school coach in Connecticut. We had spring practice, believe it or not, in the state of Connecticut. A lot of people won’t believe that, but we had spring practice. As a college coach, of course you always had spring practice. And then you go on to the NFL, and there’s the offseason program and there’s OTAs. Here’s what I always felt about the offseason, I always felt it was a great time for players and it was a great time for coaches, because coaches could teach,’’ Pasqualoni said. “And you didn’t have to worry about a game plan, an adjustment, and, ‘What are we going to do with this guy and what are we going to do with that guy?’ And for the players, it gave them a chance to just focus on getting better and that’s the goal. We have one goal every day, and that’s to improve. So, they have a chance to work on the tools that they need to perfect, to put in their toolbox, to be able to play the game. As a coach, as I said, you’re just coaching and teaching. We got into this business to be teachers and coaching is teaching. So, it’s a very, very good time of year for players to improve and to worry about technique. We’re not so much worried about scheme. I think the scheme, in the end, will take care of itself. I think the issue right now is improving fundamentally and learning how to play technique.”

5. He’s not intimidated by calling the defense on game day referring to his last two seasons as the defensive line coach at Boston College. “I think that if they (the NFL offenses have) changed, they’ve gone a little bit more to the college spread set, zone-read set. So, the past two years in the ACC, I promise you I’ve seen that a little bit, up front and very, very close and personal,’’ Pasqualoni said. “So, if anything, I think it’s probably helped me a little bit, it really has. And there’s been some good quarterbacks in that league, too, a couple good ones. It’s helped.”

For coach Matt Patricia to turn the Lions into a perennial playoff team, he has to build a solid relationship with quarterback Matthew Stafford.

He knows it, we know it. Now it has to happen.

With three days of organized team activities behind them, it appears that Matt and Matthew are off to good start.

Stafford down-played the fact that Patricia comes from the defensive side of the ball. It’s not a first. His first Lions’ head coach, Jim Schwartz, was also a former defensive coordinator. The quarterback also had a good relationship with former defensive coordinator Gunther Cunningham.

“You know, it’s not like I’ve never talked to (former Lions defensive coordinator) Teryl Austin or any of those guys too. It is, it’s always unique. Every defensive coach kind of has their own philosophy. I’m sure Coach Patricia’s will be different than the guys who have been here before,’’ Stafford said on Thursday. “It’s always fun to kind of pick the brain of the other side and see what they’re seeing and what they’re trying to take away and what they’re trying to force you to do.”

Unlike the defense, the offense is still basically the same with Jim Bob Cooter in charge.

Of course, it will be tweaked just like it is every season.

So far Stafford has impressed Patricia which isn’t exactly a shocker. Patricia was asked about the differences in Stafford and Tom Brady and would not go there. (Not a shocker either.)

“Stafford’s phenomenal. He’s work hard, tough, smart and you know what’s great is when you have quarterbacks like that where you can go out and look (QB Jake) Rudock and (QB) Matt Cassel are the same guys, and you’re going out and you’re having football conversations,’’ Patricia said on Thursday.

“You’re not really having to always explain everything from a ‘let me draw this up for you’ and show you what I’m talking about, you can just have the conversations, ‘Hey if this guy’s here’ or ‘This leverage is played like this’ or ‘The DBs in this position’ or ‘The front looks like this’ and just for them to visually have those conversations with you, that’s what’s great. That’s when you know you’ve got guys who are really dialed in.’’

They appear to have quickly developed a good on-field rapport.

“He’s competitive out on the field, I’m competitive. He’s asking me non-stop, I’m talking to him non-stop. He’s out there a bunch as a head coach, kind of standing behind me looking at the defense and seeing it kind of how I see it,’’ Stafford said. “So, there’s constant back and forth of, ‘Hey, what did you see? Did this guy give it away?’ Whatever. But we’re always talking.”

It would be wrong to down-play Cooter’s role in the offense, but at the same time Patricia knows his success rides on the shoulders of No. 9.

So far, so good.

“Matthew’s unbelievable. He loves this game, like he loves football, loves to practice, loves to prepare, he wants to know as much information as possible, not only scheme-wise, he wants to know it from players, as far as the guys around him, as far as the guys on the other side of the ball,’’ Patricia said. “Different things, that I think for me that are fun to talk to him about is like there’s a little bit of a chess game that happens offensively and defensively through some of the positions and I think from that standpoint, you know, I’m looking at him saying, ‘I’m seeing this’ or ‘You’re doing this’, you know, ‘What are you seeing from this position and how do you view that’. And I think that’s all part of the growth and education of it and it’s great. It’s a lot of fun when you can do that on the field.”

The OTAs continue next week with mandatory minicamp set for June 5-7.