ALLEN PARK -- Matt Patricia is in charge of the first training camp of his life. He gets to be the one setting the schedule and the tempo and the tone. He chooses the drills, how intense or relaxed any single setting is.

It's a lesson in time management, and it's an adjustment without Bill Belichick overseeing it all.

Chris Spielman visited practice last week and got to take in the day and how Patricia runs it all ahead of calling Detroit's preseason broadcasts. Spielman spent eight training camps with the Lions back in the '80s and '90s, and he said one part of Patricia's practice flow caught his eye.

"The thing that stood out to me that I liked and if I were ever coaching, I would employ this is you had the 1's going against the 1's on one field and the 2's going against the 2's going against the 2's on one field and then you had an extra period for rookies and young guys over here," the four-time Pro Bowl linebacker said.

"So the more reps that guys can get, the more they get on film, the better evaluation it gets. I think that's smart."

The Lions have made a concerted effort to practice and evaluate all ends of the 90-man roster. The reasons are likely multiple: Many of the coaches are new to the team, including Patricia, and more reps gives more evaluation of what's on the roster, particularly with film that they can run back through later. Detroit knows what it has in the passing game, so it can focus practice time on developing other areas a little more. That includes the defense, which has personnel in flux and enough of a need for contributors in the front seven that it could be beneficial for coaches to run through all of their options on that side of the ball.

But Patricia has also shown that he connects with the guys at the bottom of the roster, the ones who've bounced around windy career paths, hail from obscure schools and just want someone to take a chance on them. That was him in many ways when he left Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in eastern New York just to work in sales and then begged coaches to give him some volunteer opportunities until he could crack a major staff.

Belichick found a gem in Patricia back in 2004. Now, Patricia is trying to find gems on his roster. He's hoping players stand out by doing more than just individual drills and select team plays. Some players have, such as wide receivers Teo Redding and Brandon Powell, who make contested grabs or shake-and-bake plays nearly ever day. In Saturday's live scrimmage, third-year linebacker Darnell Sankey intercepted a tipped pass and zipped all the way down the sidelines for a score.

The extra evaluation makes for long days for the coaching staff, and Patricia sometimes acts like he lives in a bubble when it comes to other news and events taking place around the league. But he's trying to figure out what he has and doesn't have. It was always going to be a massive job to undertake.