If you have been paying attention to HBO’s Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the Detroit Lions, you have likely seen the footage of assistant head coach and running backs coach Duce Staley being pretty hard on D’Andre Swift as he coaches him up.
“You can be the best in this league, you really can,” running backs coach Duce Staley told Swift during a particularly frank film session that was caught on the HBO show. “But what you got to do is this: You got to have that dog mentality. You got to bring that (expletive) out of you.”
“You got to do something, Swift,” Staley bellowed, “‘cause guess what? If you would have stiff-armed him there, you might have (expletive) scored. You’re making it too easy for him. They’re already scared of you getting out there. Finish it! C’mon, man. Finish it! Be hungry. Be greedy for every (expletive) yard. Go get it. That’s the mentality. ‘Every yard out there is mine.’ Don’t be satisfied with that (expletive), man.
“Every time you step between them (expletive) lines, you got to believe you’re the (expletive) best. You got to believe it.”
D’Andre Swift talks about Duce Staley being so hard on him in front of Hard Knocks cameras
During a recent interview with Kyle Meinke of MLive, Duce Staley made it clear that he has been coaching D’Andre Swift the same way ever since he (Staley) was first hired.
“That’s been since Day 1,” Staley told MLive this week. “Since Day 1, I came through the doors, I told him I’m gonna get the best out of him, and I only know one way. And just being able to coach some of the guys that I’ve coached, from (Darren) Sproles to (LeSean) McCoy, Ryan Matthews, nothing’s changed. My job as coach is to, No. 1, put him in the best position to make plays. That’s No. 1. No. 2 is to get him to run through a brick wall with me, and not for me. And once we get on that page, you’ll see a different player.”
As far as Staley being hard on him in front of the Hard Knocks cameras, Swift knows Staley is the type of coach that wants to push him as hard as he can to get the best out of him and he appreciates it.
“He knows what it takes,” Swift said last week during a break in joint practices with the Colts. “He’s been in the position that I was in. So he the type of coach that’s going to push me to my limits, and that’s the type of coach that I need. I look forward to it. I look forward to it. Like you said, man, there’s a plan. I’m doing my job, not trying to go out there and do too much. Stay within the scheme and let it come to me. Pushing me to my limits, pushing me to my limits in every which way. Learning coverages. Learning defenses. Just detailing my work on and off the field so when I see it in the game, I done seen it before in practice.
“(He’s) one of the best coaches I’ve been around and played for. I embrace it. I look forward to it every day. Guy like him that’s going to be on me hard like that, push me to my limits and make sure I can get the best out of myself. Can’t ask for nothing else.”
Nation, do you think Duce Staley will get the most out of Detroit Lions RB D’Andre Swift?
