NFC Notes: Lions, Packers, Vikings

Lions

Lions first-round RB Jahmyr Gibbs suffered a minor tweak to his ankle in training camp and expects the noise that the team reached to draft him to die down quickly. 

“Everybody is entitled to their opinion,” Gibbs said, via Eric Woodyard of ESPN. “I really don’t care.”

“I’m straight. “ Gibbs added on his ankle injury.

Packers

Packers QB Jordan Love is thankful for the time he spent behind QB Aaron Rodgers and the relationship they developed.

“We talked after the trade,” Love said, via ESPN. “Kind of just, ‘Wish you the best going forward.’ He wished me the best and [is] always there for me if I need anything, if I have any questions or anything. I’m always just grateful to be around him and for the time I had with him, to be able to learn and be behind him. It’s very grateful for me.”

Love admitted that it was hard when Rodgers signed a contract extension with the Packers.

“I’ll admit, I think the hardest time was when he re-signed the contract last year,” Love added. “It was kinda like, ‘OK, well, where do we go from here? What do I do?’ And I think I sat back, thought to myself and just came back with the approach, like, ‘Let’s just go ball out any opportunity I get. I’m gonna get preseason and who knows what happens after that, so just grow and try and become the best version of myself, and I can’t really control what happens after that, so let it play out.’”

Love has earned the respect of RB Aaron Jones and his patience while sitting the bench.

“He believes in himself, first off,” Jones said. “That’s No. 1. You’ve got to believe in yourself, or nobody else is going to believe in you. So, he believes in himself, he cares about everybody around him, and we’ve seen him just come in consistently and just work, work, work. As an athlete, you want to come in and play right away, and that wasn’t Jordan’s case; he didn’t have that opportunity. And he did it the right way, he waited his time and you never heard one peep or complaint out of him. He has everyone’s respect, and he works as well, just like everybody else.”

Vikings

Vikings HC Kevin O’Connell said the team doesn’t have a timeline on an extension for WR Justin Jefferson but is at the top of their to-do list.

“I don’t know if I’d put a timeline on it,” O’Connell said, via PFT. “I just know that, you know, we very much are looking forward to having Justin play here for a really long time. He has significantly impacted our organization in so many positive ways on and off the field. I look forward to when we get that done and we can move forward knowing that Justin’s going to be here for the long term and we will get that done. Justin knows, his representation knows exactly how we feel about him. We’ll work through that process here over the rest of this spring on into summer and then if we can get something done nobody will be more excited about it than me and we’ll be looking forward to seeing what Justin does in year two in this offense.”

O’Connell said Jefferson was able to pick up the offense and process information quickly.

“I mean, talk about a guy that was able to handle a lot,” O’Connell said. “It’s not like we came in here year one and said, ‘We’re going to run this, you know, minimal version of our offense.’ To truly maximize him in our offense, it required him to handle a lot, a lot, a lot of football. And he did it really seamlessly and prepared every single week mentally and physically to go out there and do the things that he did all season long. Just a spectacular season a year ago for him and like I said, just can’t wait to see what he’s able to do in year two in this offense.”

• Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com reports that the Vikings will retain some of pass rusher Za’Darius Smith‘s salary as part of the deal to trade him to the Browns.