HOUSTON — Matthew Stafford has never been one to sit out practice, but as he enters his 11th NFL season, the Lions quarterback said the six-day throwing break he received recently should pay dividends this fall. "I’m not 21 anymore, so it’s probably pretty good to, if you can find a place in the schedule where you think you can get some rest and just kind of feel fresh again, might as well," Stafford said after the first of two joint practices Wednesday against the Houston Texans. The Lions gave Stafford two rest days at practice over the weekend, when he threw sparingly and did not take part in team drills. Coupled with days off Friday and Monday, a walkthrough last Wednesday that Stafford participated only lightly in, and last Thursday's preseason opener, which he sat out entirely, Stafford had nearly a week off of practice for the first time since he injured his throwing shoulder in 2010. Stafford, who played through a late-season back injury last year, insisted Wednesday that he feels fine physically and said his time off was planned weeks in advance. "It’s not easy for me but it’s probably good for me in the long run," Stafford said. "So something that Coach Patricia and I had talked about and probably the right thing to do. But it was good, gave me a little bit of perspective, let me coach the guys a little bit more on the sideline. But yeah, it’s not easy as a competitor to sit out, but it’s probably the smart thing to do." Lions coach Matt Patricia said over the weekend that he does not subscribe to the theory that quarterbacks only have a certain number of throws in their arm . Last year, Stafford had just 3,777 yards passing, his lowest total in eight years, and struggled down the stretch after the Lions traded Golden Tate to the New York Giants and lost Marvin Jones and Kerryon Johnson to injury. Stafford, 31, is expected to see about a quarter of action in Saturday's preseason game against the Texans. "I just think it’s smart to, when you have chances, to try to take care of yourself," Stafford said. "There was kind of a little bit of a break in the action for a couple days and then two quick ones at home so we were like, might as well do it." Patricia and Texans coach Bill O'Brien spent five years working together on the same staff with the New England Patriots, and O'Brien said Wednesday's practice went like "clockwork" because of their history. "He and I, we go back a long way, coached together in New England, didn't really even have to meet about this, we just knew how it would work," O'Brien said. "It was smooth operation. Matt does a really good job, very smart guy, really good coach and it was good to work with those guys today. It was really good." The Lions held two joint practices plus a walkthrough last week against the Patriots. And while the Lions, Patriots and Texans all run a similar defense — former Patriots assistant Romeo Crennel is Houston's defensive coordinator — Patricia said there's enough variance in the schemes that his offense has seen plenty of different looks at the midpoint of camp. "I think everybody has their own little twists on where they have progressed and developed, and certainly all of us have different things that we like," Patricia said. "I think one thing that we all kind of do is we try to take the players that we have and fit the scheme to what fits our players best. So that’s what’s going to make it different from team to team, which is good. That’ll be a good challenge for us from that standpoint." Lions cornerback Darius Slay called Texans receiver DeAndre Hopkins one of the two best receivers in the NFL , along with Julio Jones, over the weekend. On Wednesday, Hopkins said he holds Slay in equally high esteem. "Darius is one of the best doing it right now, and he matched up against me well," Hopkins said. "So I feel like going out against him today, I learned some things and I feel like we kind of bounced knowledge off each other." Hopkins finished second in the NFL with 1,572 yards receiving last season, while Slay made his second straight Pro Bowl. Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com . Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett. Read more on the Detroit Lions and sign up for our Lions newsletter .