Dave Birkett

Detroit Free Press

Jay Lee didn’t have many responsibilities as a wide receiver in Baylor’s spread offense.

Plays were signaled in from the sideline. When they were designed to go to the opposite side of the field, his duties called for him to take a few steps and not run a full route. And blocking might as well have been optional on most plays.

So when Lee took a top-30 visit to the Lions before last week's NFL draft, the team wanted to test his recall and ability to play in a pro-style offense.

They gave him the plays they would be installing on the first day of rookie minicamp, had him walk through his routes with wide receivers coach Robert Prince and, a few hours later, after filling his head with meetings and interviews with various people, put him on the whiteboard to go through the plays again.

“My alignment, what route to run, how deep, the conversions, all that stuff. I did a great job of that and really impressed,” Lee said. “(Prince) thought I was cheating. I was like, ‘Nah, Coach. I’m not cheating. This is just all me.’”

Lee impressed enough during his visit and during a previous workout with offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter -- at which Cooter threw passes to Lee and fellow Baylor receiver Corey Coleman -- that the Lions made him one of their top priorities in rookie free agency after the draft.

Lee initially thought he was going to get drafted by the team and even had his cousin look up all of the Lions’ third-day draft picks after getting a promising-sounding text from Cooter early Saturday morning.

But as draft day rolled on and Lee spent the afternoon in constant contact with Cooter and Prince, the Lions informed him that they weren’t going to be taking a receiver in the draft.

“At that point, I was getting calls from the Giants and Seahawks and Jaguars and Dallas, and I was like, ‘Y’all got some competition, because Detroit is heavy on me right now,’” Lee said. “Sure enough, I called my agent, and we all talked it out, three-way conversation, and he’s like, ‘We’re going to Detroit.’ And I was like, ‘All right, well, I’m ready to pack my bags and get up there.’”

Lee, who had a draft party for more than 100 family members and friends at a restaurant near his home in Allen, Texas, on Saturday, ducked behind a wall when the deal was finalized shortly after the draft and came out to address the crowd.

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He wore a backward cap, made a short speech and then flipped around his hat to show off the Lions logo on the front.

“I took a visit up to Detroit and I really liked the facility and the coaches, and I also got to do a little workout with coach Cooter a couple days after my pro day,” Lee said. “So I really got a good feel for him and how they run their offense and stuff like that. And after my visit, I was kind of leaning on them the whole time … so we kind of went that way after everything was said and done.”

Lee, who pulled off the hat stunt with the help of a marketing rep who had New Era send him hats of all 32 teams ahead of the draft, will have a chance to compete for the wide-open No. 5 receiver job with the Lions this fall.

Marvin Jones, Golden Tate, Jeremy Kerley and TJ Jones appear to be locked into the top four receiver spots, with Corey Fuller and Corey Washington among others in the mix for a job.

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Lee, who measured a shade under 6-feet-2 at the Senior Bowl, caught 38 passes for 758 yards last year and averaged a whopping 19.9 yards per catch. He said he doesn’t expect a difficult transition from Baylor’s spread offense to the Lions when rookie camp begins Friday.

“Obviously, nothing’s set in stone,” he said. “You always got to go in there and work, but I’m going to be a guy that’s open for anything. I’m going to go work on special teams, too, as well as receiver. I’m open to do anything right now, but my main goal is to go get that spot. That’s my main goal.”

Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett

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