Lions' Stanton Has Trouble Throwing Spirals

Minutes after the Detroit Lions drafted quarterback Drew Stanton with their second-round pick, the NFL Network's Mike Mayock showed a clip from Stanton's Pro Day workout earlier this spring. To call his performance awful would be unfair to truly awful things like Yankees pitching and Benedict Arnold Tom Brady, but let's just say it wasn't very good.

As in: Stanton struggled to throw spirals, even on simple 15-yard crossing routes. Well, guess what? Nothing's changed in the weeks since his Pro Day:

Before Stanton can get comfortable with the offense, though, he has to get comfortable throwing the ball. ... As Stanton worked on it Friday, he didn't throw a lot of spirals. The ball often wobbled. ...

[Offensive coordinator Mike] Martz strips down quarterbacks and builds them back up, and he has just begun the process with Stanton, a second-round pick. He went all the way back to the beginning, teaching him how to grip the football properly.

The good news, though, is that the Lions like Stanton because of his willingness to learn: "Stanton was the only quarterback prospect Martz worked out personally this spring. Stanton wasn't throwing the deep ball particularly well at Michigan State's pro day, but after soaking up some pointers from Martz, he improved."

So things aren't going so great out of the box, but hey, not everybody can be Calvin Johnson. Plus, it's not like Martz hasn't had success with grooming NFL quarterbacks in the past. Right, Marc Bulger?