Kayvon Thibodeaux wants some answers. As far as he's concerned, he hit it off with Lions head coach Dan Campbell and general manager Brad Holmes during the pre-draft process, including during his formal visit with the team earlier this month.
And yet there's a sentiment that Thibodeaux, one of the top pass rushers in the draft and a potential pick for the Lions at No. 2 overall, doesn't mesh with the culture Campbell is trying to establish in Detroit.
"No one I’ve talked to at this point believes that Oregon’s Kayvon Thibodeaux is in any way a culture fit for Detroit coach Dan Campbell," SI's Albert Breer reported a couple weeks ago. Breer then cited an NFL exec who said of Thibodeaux, "His personality is a lot, and you hear the head coach there isn’t a fan.”
To which Thibodeaux says: Huh?
"That’s the crazy thing about media because it came out that like, ‘Oh, Brad Holmes is not high on Kayvon’ — I don’t know who they said," Thibodeaux told Josina Anderson. "Listen, if you were at that meeting, I mean, it was like my uncle at a cookout. We’re giggling, we’re clowning, we’re really getting to know each other and building a relationship. So we hit it off. I feel like it was great. And not just him, but every coach that I met with became a mentor of mine because I took heed of the information they had. Learn and apply is everything."
On top of that, Thibodeaux said Wednesday that he and Campbell have become tight in recent weeks, talking so much that Thibodeaux joked, "I talk to Dan too much."
"I’m tired of talking to Dan. Dan got me on speed dial. Not like that, I’m just joking. But we’ve had lots of talks," he told the Free Press.
Thibodeaux added that he would "love" to play for Campbell and the Lions, and again questioned the reports that he wouldn't be a culture fit in Detroit.
“Who’d they say said that, that I wouldn’t be a (fit)?" Thibodeaux asked. "I hope they didn’t say a person said it. I hope it was a ‘source,’ cause I’m like, 'Dude.'"
Come Thursday night, Thibodeaux might be the dude for Detroit.
If he is, and the Jacksonville Jaguars select Travon Walker No. 1 overall as expected, that leaves open the possibility of Aidan Hutchinson falling to the Texans at No. 3. It's an idea that seemed unlikely just days ago, and certainly when the draft process first began.
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