Kyle Vanden Bosch Still Exhibiting Leadership as NFL Lockout Continues

Kyle Vanden Bosch is going to keep earning his paycheck, whether anybody's writing him one or not.

In a move that some are calling bad for the NFLPA (or is it now the organization previously known as the NFLPA?), the veteran defensive end is organizing team workouts at privately-owned training facilities and gyms in and around Detroit.

Now, it's true that no NFL players can use team facilities, communicate with coaches or team personnel, or carry out any official business during the lockout, but what Vanden Bosch is doing here isn't any of that.

As far as the NFL is concerned right now, he's just a guy going to work out with his buddies. But in reality, Vanden Bosch is trying to do what the Detroit Lions, as an organization, can't right now.

This week would have marked the start of offseason conditioning and workout programs (the precursor to true OTAs), under more favorable labor conditions. Instead, we have a situation where Jim Schwartz would be in hot water if he so much as called one of his players to ask what he had for lunch.

So Vanden Bosch, never one to stop working, decided to organize his own offseason conditioning program. Granted, he doesn't have the kind of sway necessary to pull the whole team together, but he does have enough influence to pull Cliff Avril up from his home in Jacksonville, Florida. He got Rob Sims to come up and work out in Detroit, even though the man owns a gym in Ohio.

Vanden Bosch, in an interview on Sirius NFL Radio, had absolutely no problem with admitting he was trying to get a leg up on his competitors.

"I want to have my best season next year," Vanden Bosch said. "I want to make sure the guys on my d-line, we have the best unit in the league next year. And just, hypothetically, if we can't get together until the end of July or in August, I don't know that we can do that."

Yeah, we all know Vanden Bosch isn't getting any younger. We know he's a guy who makes up for a lack of elite skills with intangible mental assets like a "high motor" and "leadership." And those are things that, generally, fans are unable to quantify.

We see what Vanden Bosch does on the field, not what he does in the locker room. What he does on the field is what's important, right?

Well, of course it is. But maybe now Lions fans can get a feel for why Schwartz showed up on Vanden Bosch's doorstep five minutes after free agency started. After taking over a franchise that had traveled the road to (and through) futility, along the way making a number of passing remarks about "changing the culture of losing," and "learning how to win," Schwartz realized what he needed.

He needed the type of guy who works and plays like he expects to win, a guy who can change that culture from the inside out.

Say what you want about Vanden Bosch's skills, or his legitimacy as an every-down player at this point in his career. Any player who gets his teammates to come halfway across the country for cone drills in Wixom-even after the paychecks have stopped-is worth whatever they're (eventually) getting paid.

In the case of Vanden Bosch, who's making an average of just over $5 million over the next three years? If he never records another sack in his career, I'll still consider it a bargain just to have him in the locker room.