Jarrad Davis played well in his rookie season with the Detroit Lions in 2017, and did enough to earn the trust of the team most of the year even though he was being asked to run the show as a youngster at an important position on the field. As a result, Davis is set to take a big leap in 2018, and his new position coach Al Golden thinks the best is yet to come for a smart, dedicated player at a key spot, and believes he can help him reach his goals.

"He's smart, he's smart and he works at it. He prepares really well. He's a consummate pro, he holds himself to a high standard and he's not afraid to hold his teammates to a high standard," Golden said about Davis when speaking with the media this past week.

Perhaps the most impressive thing for Golden from year one was the ability of Davis to adjust quickly and improve, something which the two will keep working at now to prepare themselves for the 2018 season, but clearly, there are building blocks already to note.

"Obviously he embraced the grind and improved as the season when on, and he was able to stay healthy. He knows what he has to do this offseason to be able to maintain that through the entire season," Golden said. "I think I am very fortunate to be able to coach him. When he's a young player of first year player, you're trying to install, you're trying to teach him a lot of different things, but I have the luxury of coming in and saying these are the five or six things we're going to focus on. We have a chance to make an incremental jump from year one to year two."

While Golden wouldn't say what Davis needs to work on specifically, he did say that Davis is already putting in work to iron those things out, and the coach will be pushing him in order to ensure that those things get worked on before the start of the season.

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"There's little things in his game we're trying to improve or tweak or just make sure he's looking at a different way. My job is to refine and drill down and challenge him, or bring up those points when they show up. It's really not about being specific. Whatever the topic is, my job is to drill down and find the faults before everybody else does and try to get them corrected."

More will be expected of Davis in Matt Patricia's defense, but Golden already sees the big steps being taken by Davis in order to make these things happen come the 2018 season.

"I think there's more responsibility. There's an onus on him to elevate as a leader, and he's capable to do that. From that standpoint, he needs to take a bigger role in the entire unit, not just the position or what he's trying to achieve on a daily basis. And he's done that," Golden said.

As a whole, the Lions defense will be depending on their young linebackers coming on and adjusting to a multiple defense where plenty is expected, but for Golden, so far, this hasn't been an issue given the guys the Lions have on the roster and their strengths.

"I think everybody that's in our room right now is versatile. It's a veteran group all of a sudden which is great. It's an intelligent group. I think we have good leadership, and a lot of guys who embrace preparation, embrace the change. From that standpoint, what happened last year is in the past and we're just trying to learn the new system, help each other, lean on each other through this process.

Davis will be the guy driving that bus for Golden, and it's safe to say it will be fun to see how the two work at achieving these goals.