Defensive tackle Grady Jackson returned to practice on Tuesday, which marked the team's first day in full pads.

Jackson had previously been placed on the "non-football/injury list" due to a previous knee injury, but participated in a handful of team exercises.

The 36-year old Jackson is expected to play an integral part in Detroit's defense, assisting a line that is considered one of the weaker facets of the ball club.

Grady had previous missed all of the team's off-season training activity, but head coach Jim Schwartz had been pleased with his conditioning.

"We wanted to get him out there, wanted to get him through individual and then take it slow," said Schwartz. "What we’ll do is we’ll just sort of start mixing him in a little bit at a time but he’s behind everybody else simply because he hasn’t been out for all those days.

"It made no sense to put him in the team (drills) right away."