Desmond Trufant wants to compete with himself without comparisons to others

[Roary]

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Desmond Trufant signed with the Lions before they traded Darius Slay to the Eagles last week, which sets him up to be compared with Slay in the future as many saw Trufant’s arrival as a trigger to the deal that Slay wanted for a while.

Trufant is no stranger to being compared to other cornerbacks. It comes with the territory when two of your brothers — Marcus and Isaiah — also played the position in the NFL, but such comparisons aren’t particularly interesting to Trufant.

“Honestly, I just compete with myself to be real with you,” Trufant said on a conference call, via MLive.com. “Everybody got their own success story; everybody’s story is different. You know what I’m saying? Once you start talking about that, that’s just a matter of opinion. You know what I mean? For me, I just want to reach my potential as far as me playing at my highest level, you know, for the rest of my career. That’s just what I want to be. Only I know that you know, only I know when I’m playing my best, or I’m maximizing all my opportunities. That’s just how I want to finish this thing out.”

There’s been a lot of speculation that the Lions will look to add former Ohio State cornerback Jeff Okudah in the first round of the draft, which may limit some of the comparisons to Slay. Any drop in the play of the secondary isn’t likely to reflect well on the decisions the Lions have made on defense this offseason, however.