Player Blog: Louis Delmas

“My first game was exciting. I mean, it was every little bit of what I thought it would be as far as the fans being who they were and the hype of the game speed-wise on defense. I had a big head for a minute when I went out there. I had to calm myself down, but at the end of the day, it’s football.
 
“I rate my performance as average. I think I got a little big-headed going out there being that it was my first game. I’m over here on the field with all these TV-type dudes that I hear about every day. I let my mind and my ego get away from me a little bit.

“I didn’t execute 100-percent on my assignment like I wanted to. It’s a phase. I got through it. I’m happy for that and I’ve just got to come through this game with a better mindset.
 
“I definitely experienced the difference in how you have to be focused mentally. In college, you can just zoom in to your man and that’s it. The NFL – you can’t just zoom in to your man because your man might be fooling you just so the ball can go over the top of your head. So your peripheral’s got to be on point. I’ve got to do a better job of that.
 
“As far as us as a defense, Gun – he doesn’t play when it comes to missing tackles. He was big on that. We missed a couple tackles that pretty much cost us some big plays on Saturday. He emphasized that real big. This week we did a couple tackling drills.
 
“I think we responded well to the criticism. The vets did a great job of sitting down us rookies – all the young players – and letting us know, ‘Time’s are going to be rough like this sometimes, but you’ve just got to look forward to the next play – not look back.’ Just learn from the play that just happened and try to execute our next play better.
 
“Playing Indianapolis, my approach is the same. I watched film on Peyton Manning, I try to study him and, of course, I know who he is. He’s one of the best quarterbacks in the league. I’m taking it for what it is. I guess this will be the first time we’ve really got to say that we’ve got to play up to the level of competition because they’ve got a great offensive scheme; they’ve got a great team.
 
“I think my particular goal is to just fly around. No matter what happens – fly to the ball. If I can get to the ball every play, I’ll be happy.”

Player Blog: Brandon Pettigrew

“I feel good after my first game – I have fresh legs. It’s only preseason, but getting the win was a start and it was good to finally get out there. At first I was kind of in and out – it was hard to get a groove. But once I get into the flow and got a few blocks in and got a couple catches, it was all good.

“I didn’t get to hit on the first play, because the first play I got in was a route. But once I got the first run play in, it was good after that. Getting my first catch got me going. It gets you into the groove of things. It definitely got me going.

“I thought worked together well as a team – as an offense. We kind of hurt ourselves and put ourselves in bad positions, but I thought we played well together. Last week, we really beat ourselves. I don’t think we really played as well as we should have. This week, we kind of battled back and we hung in there and we got it done.”

STATEMENT REGARDING QB DAUNTE CULPEPPER

Detroit Lions QB Daunte Culpepper sustained a minor cut to his toe at his home Saturday evening. The injury, which required eight stitches, is not considered serious. Culpepper will not practice today and his status for Thursday’s game will be determined later this week.

On QB Daunte Culpepper’s injury: “He sort of stubbed it and it wasn’t cut, it stretched his foot and sort of tore up by the top of where his toe is. They put a lot of stitches in, but mainly to secure it. it’s probably one of those ones that if you or me had gone to the emergency room they might have put two or three stitches in. With him I think they put eight in just to make sure it’s secure.”

On how the current quarterback situation affects his decision moving forward for Thursday: “I need to wait and see what Daunte’s (Culpepper) situation is. He hasn’t be ruled out for anything. Obviously he’s sore right now, but a lot of times those things… you get those disposable stitches that can get desensitized pretty quickly, so we’ll just have to wait and see where that is.”

The team also announced that they have placed CB Dexter Wynn on reserve/injured and have released the following players: WR D.J. Boldin, LB Rob Francois, S LaMarcus Hicks and DE Ryan Kees.