Joique Bell And Haloti Ngata Return To Lions Practice
By Ashley Scoby
@AshleyScoby
Joique Bell and Haloti Ngata both made their long-awaited returns to the practice field on Monday.
Bell had been on the Physically Unable to Perform list since the beginning of training camp, so this was his first time back on the field. He immediately jumped into practicing with the first-team offense, although he was limited as far as number of touches go.
"I'm just working as hard as I can to get back to full reps as fast as I can," Bell said. "I'm right on pace with where I think I should be."
When head coach Jim Caldwell was asked if Bell was the top guy at that position, he wouldn't commit to a yes or no answer.
"You know, obviously right now, he's just getting back," Caldwell said. "We'll see where he is. Nobody's even said he's going to be ready to go, you know, he's out there practicing. We're trying to get him there but, you know, there's no guarantees at this point, so we'll wait and see."
On the other side of the ball, defensive tackle Haloti Ngata made his return as well, after being activated Monday off the non-football injury list.
For Ngata, his main focus is to be caught-up physically with everyone else at his position, especially after so much time off the practice field. Mentally, he feels equal with everyone else.
"I feel like I know the playbook pretty well now, just doing a lot of mental reps," he said. "A lot of it's just trying to be physically there and doing as much cardio and stuff like that and making sure I'm not way behind the other guys."
It's also been slightly more difficult to mesh with everyone else, thanks to the isolation that comes with injury.
"It definitely is frustrating but you get to hang out with the guys and see how they fit with you and their character and get to know them and just kind of talk to them about some techniques," Ngata said. "That's definitely important and so you'll never take that for granted, so you try to get to know the guys really well and hopefully learn to love the guys you're going to war with."
Ngata is expected to play a large role this season as the defensive line works to replace Ndamukong Suh, who signed with the Miami Dolphins this offseason.
Bell has been expected all along to be the starter at running back, although the Lions have quite a bit of depth at that position, with Theo Riddick, rookie Ameer Abdullah and preseason star Zach Zenner.
