Well, he better be damn good this year. You don't draft a tight end in the top 10 when TE is about 9th on the list of priorities. He got his free pass last season.
ALLEN PARK, Mich. -- Eric Ebron has no regrets over how his rookie season played out with the Detroit Lions. He never evaluated the year. He said he never really focused on it after it was over.
The tight end, whom the Lions had selected with the No. 10 pick in the 2014 draft, merely moved on -- but doesn't consider it a disappointment.
"To everybody else it might have been," Ebron said Tuesday in his first extensive comments during training camp. "To me, it was a learning experience. I've learned what I learned, and now I'm here for, what they say, your sophomore year or your second season, to be 20 times better than I was my rookie season."
Ebron played in 13 games in 2014, catching 25 passes for 248 yards and one touchdown that came in Week 4 against the Jets. He suffered a hamstring injury that cost him three games in the middle of last season, but he said Tuesday that he had "nicks and bruises" from his final season at North Carolina in 2013 that never fully healed.
He also wasn't fully ready for the grind of a 16-game season, so he hired a new trainer and offseason staff to work with him so he would be better prepared for the 2015 campaign. Ebron said he understands more this camp than he did last year and has a better understanding of what playing a full NFL season will take.
Ebron didn't elaborate on what he did to help better prepare himself for 2015 besides hiring a new trainer, but Lions general manager Martin Mayhew praised Ebron last week. Mayhew said he sees "a lot more discipline, professional, motivated, realistic guy than what I saw last year."
Mayhew said he believes Ebron is more focused this season. Ebron said he is going to continue to be himself -- and that was the only answer he could give about the non-trainer steps he has taken.
"Just show them who I really am," Ebron said. "You're not going to get anything different. This is who I am.
"I'm a clown. I have personality but I'm here, and when it's game time, I came here to make plays, and they respect every bit of it."
Ebron said the Lions players believe in him -- and both Golden Tate and Lance Moore have said they have seen improvement from Ebron this offseason and expect him to continue to grow.
That appears to be Ebron's plan as well.
"Just continue being myself," Ebron said. "That's my mentality and that's how I attack everything, just be me."
http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/1...t-lions-says-rookie-season-not-disappointment
