Dan Campbell called them 'softballs.' John Penisini called them 'chicken hearts.' Whatever they were -- Penisini doesn't know "the scientific term for it" -- the second-year defensive tackle for the Lions is just glad they're out of his shoulder.
Now he can actually lift his arms over his head.
"It was like a bunch of fat in there, just all bottled up. Took it out and it looked like chicken hearts," Penisini said Friday after the Lions' third practice of training camp.
Penisini said his shoulder flared up around Week 4 last season. From that point forward, his right arm was basically useless. He couldn't do any kind of upper-body workouts. At home, he said he couldn't even "push off the bed." He chuckled and said he didn't lose weight.
"I got fat," he said.
Powered by his legs, Penisini still managed to play in all 16 games and log about half the defensive snaps for Detroit. He just wasn't very effective, not to the degree you might expect from the self-proclaimed "most slept-on" player in the draft.
"It was hard," Penisini said.
Campbell said Thursday that Penisini had an operation after the season to repair "what looked like softballs in his shoulder."
"It just looked like a bunch of calcium deposits that had been in there. When you watch the film last year you wonder why he’s not using his arm. It’s because he had issues," Campbell said. "It’s a credit to him playing through it. He’s better and you could see it (on Wednesday). It was impressive."
If the injury limited Penisini physically, it didn't limit his action. He said he "played all the snaps" the Lions gave him, and he would have happily played more. He improved as he gained more range of motion, posting 16 tackles in Detroit's final five games. He said he's back to 100 percent and "ready for the season."
Campbell said the Lions have "been pleased with Penisini where he came back into camp," after he missed spring practices for family reasons. He's the biggest player on their roster, listed at 335 lbs. after playing last season around 315. Campbell said they envision Penisini as an early-down, goal-line, short-yardage nose tackle.
"And you feel pretty good about that," he said.
And Penisini feels pretty good to have those things -- whatever they were -- out of his shoulder.