The Detroit Lions brought a familiar name to their facility for a visit this week -- UCF receiver Breshad Perriman, son of former Lions receiver Brett Perriman -- but that doesn't mean Detroit was necessarily familiar to him.
"I don't remember coming to any of his games or coming to Detroit at all, so it's kind of cool to come back and experience how it was when he was here," Perriman told detroitlions.com.
When Lions fans remember the elder Perriman best, they remember 1995. That was a career-best season of 108 catches, 1,488 yards and nine touchdowns, but it was also a year Breshad would have been too young to recall; he was just two years old. The question NFL scouts have is whether Breshad Perriman can consistently have a year like that in the NFL, and nothing about his pro-day performance last week suggests he couldn't. Perriman ran a sub-4.3 40-yard dash, a time that amazed scouts on hand who surely expected less from a receiver of his size (6-2, 212 pounds).
Perriman has worked his way into being a potential first-round pick, and currently ranks No. 30 -- just within first-round range -- on NFL Media analyst Daniel Jeremiah's Top 50 rankings. Perriman's athleticism aside, his game still needs some polish. So what does he need to work on most?
"Mainly route running and hands," Perriman told the web site. "Not so much as far as the hands part, but as the concentration. I had a lot of concentration drops last year, probably a little bit too many. And I want to improve on my route running and get used to doing different routes, slots routes, and things like that. I feel like it's been working tremendously for me."
Perriman said it would "mean the world" to him to be drafted by the club that employed his father for six of his 11 NFL seasons.
"He's helped me a lot," Breshad Perriman said. "He tells me the ins and outs about the whole game and the business part of it, but at the same time he gives me the leeway and freedom to experience things by myself."
The Lionshave a need at the receiver position, although their more pressing needs are on the line of scrimmage, so a Perriman-Lions sequel seems unlikely.
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