In 2008 Golden Tate was enjoying his days as a wide receiver at Notre Dame.
Eight years later, the Detroit Lions wide receiver knows exactly what the Lions preseason record was that year.
“There’s a time the Lions went 4-0 in preseason and then went 0-16. I wouldn’t get too carried away with these preseason games,” Tate said.
The Lions are 1-2 in the preseason and will wrap it up Thursday night at Ford Field against the Buffalo Bills.
Tate sees reason for optimism in the new Jim Bob Cooter offense, even though the starting offense has yet to score a touchdown in the preseason.
“Specifically last week I thought the offensive line did a better job at blocking and communicating. We had some good runs with the ones and twos and threes. That’s always refreshing,” Tate said. “I would say as a receiver group we didn’t show up as we expected to. That’s one thing we’re taking seriously. We’re trying to practice our tails off and catch the ball a little better and make the plays we’re expected to make. And go forward.”
Tate had two drops in that 30-9 loss to the Baltimore Ravens on Saturday.
Matthew Stafford has looked fine making nice connections at times with newcomers Marvin Jones and Anquan Boldin.
It’s hard to judge in the preseason. Tate would like to think they can build on a preseason even though they will finish without a winning record.
“We have great schemes, great players, great coaching. If you have one player here and there that doesn’t communicate or do his assignment that could blow up a play. Once we get all in synch consistently I think we’re going to be a really good team,” Tate said. “Look at the film we moved the ball and we had some errors, we had some drops and were still moving the ball just fine so we have to keep working, keep trusting in what they’re coaching us and I think it’s going to come along.”
On the other side of the ball, safety Glover Quin remains positive.
“I think we feel pretty good obviously it’s hard to tell when you haven’t played a full game. You go out there for a series, you go out for two or three series, you go out for a half. It’s kind of hard to gage how the game would have gone. We want to win all our games no matter who is out there,” Quin said.
Tate and Quin agree that the mistakes that have been made are correctable.
“We’ve done some good things, we’ve also done some things that aren’t very good,” Quin said. “We know the things we have to clean up and we know things we ‘ve got to make sure we’re doing a lot better Week One.”
And then there is a huge factor coming out of training camp and the preseason. Look at the Vikings who have lost starting quarterback Teddy Bridgewater for the season and the Cowboys who will be missing Tony Romo for at least the first six games.
The Lions offense is missing Brendan Pettigrew who will be out at least for the first six weeks but it’s from his ACL surgery late last season.
Eric Ebron has missed practice since a leg injury on Aug. 6 but it does not appear to be long term.
“The thing that I like for the most part is we’ve come out fairly healthy. We haven’t really lost anybody on the D-line, we’ve lost (Jon) Bostic as a linebacker, but we’ve got (DeAndre) Levy bac,” Quin said. “In the secondary we haven’t really lost anybody, a couple young guys to injury. In this game if you’re healthy – everybody has good players – it’s about who’s healthiest and who’s ready to go. If we can get out of the preseason and training camp healthy that gives us a great chance going into Week One.”
The Lions open the regular season on Sept. 11 at the Indianapolis Colts.
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