Dan often say’s…. “This is what we’re built for.” … In his post game speeches to the team.
So I ask… Are the Lions built to go the distance?
8 of the top 10 defenses went to the playoffs.
Den and Sea were two of the most balanced teams in the NFL. Having both a top 10 offense and defense.
We watched as teams like GB, LAR, SF, and CHI get knocked off because their teams were not balanced enough.
Clearly it takes a good offense and good defense to go the distance and the Lions defense has had plenty of struggles under Dan Campbell. While they have been improving and have played very well at times they’re not consistent enough.
In all fairness injuries have riddled the defense especially in our secondary.
But each year we carry fewer DB’s than the NFL avg into the season. It is like we’re asking for it. Once we lose a starter or two our secondary becomes our Achilles because our backups can’t stop anyone on 3rd down.
Injuries have definitely been our defenses downfall but we carry players who are hurt more than healthy. Carrying Davenport, Paschal, and Levi on our defensive line has caused us to be thin on the DL every year.
I really dislike our approach on building our defense. I feel like it’s time to get better depth on the DL and in our secondary. It starts with players who are healthy and available on Sunday. I honestly think it’s time to move on from Paschal, Davenport and Levi. I think it’s time we add in more depth to our secondary. I’d like to see us be able to carry another DB like most teams do.
Point being is we need to look at what’s stopping us from being a top 10 defense and address it.
What do you think the Lions need to do to push this defense into the top 10…. Or to win a Superbowl?
DL has to be the priority. Let AA walk, Barnes, Campbell and Rodrigo are fine.
In the back end it depends on the health of Branch and Kerby but we need another starting CB along with depth and beef up safety depth.
Agree all around with your post, the offense the last 3 years has been good enough to win a SB, the defense is holding this team back right now.
Oh, I know this will cause responses, but I really believe our approach on defense has to change, we are too reactionary, not attacking.
Edit: I will state what I mean by that, our DL is a read and react DL. Geared to stop the run first then rush the passer. It doesn’t have to be like that, we have the horses at LB to play an aggressive attacking DL and let the LB’s fill the gaps.
They will not win a Super Bowl running the same defensive system they’ve been running since Dan’s been here.
I’d be more than more than happy to do another deep dive into all the data, but their approach to how they use their defensive front four HAS to change.
More seriously, I believe we need more zone and quicker explosiveness to the QB to force faster decisions. So most of my suggestions for team improvement are going to be directly tied to the trenches. Force quicker decision making on them. Give us more time for good decision making or good options for our RBs. Sounds so simple.
Not sure, but I do know that finishing dead last in the league in time to the quarterback, ie how long until a pass rush get’s home, is not “good”…even if Hutch has a bunch of sacks against mostly crappy teams
We were also the worst in average “Time To Pressure”.
The read and react system was done to stop the run, but they did not stop the run while the whole front seven was healthy down the stretch running that system.
Three of the top four teams in stunt rate (%) this season made their conference championship games, including the two teams that made the Super Bowl. The Lions were 20th in stunt rate this past season.
The Lions were the only team in the league to run over 50% base personnel. Seattle led the league in nickel personnel rate.
People like to make the comparison that our defense is supposed to be like Denver’s defense, which is also a predominantly man based system, as proof that our system is somehow just as good as the systems that are capable of winning at the top level.
Denver runs less than half the base personnel we do. They also happen to have the best corner in the entire league, who is one of maybe three of four guys in the league you can actually get away with just putting on an island.
We do not run a “similar” system to Denver, nor do we have the personnel to effectively run Denver’s system.
To answer the question. Absolutely yes they are built right.
Now the nuanced reply would suggest that the Lions now have the proper approach, management, and culture. So they now have a chance. Which is 80% of the battle.
The SF loss in the Championship game was a huge missed chance. This season if they got into the playoffs they could have made a run. But again the holes in the team due to injuries and such would have caused they to lose along the way.
You first must put yourself in position which the Lions now have that completed. You then need to stay healthy (talk to Denver) and then finally sometimes get lucky (talk to NE).
I feel like we are mostly set at all our skill positions on offense. Our Oline went in the crapper losing Rags, Zeitler and Deckers decline. On defense…. it’s a mess and we’ve shot a lot of cap wad resigning like every BH draft pick he’s made to big contracts. Branch/Kerby is a huge nut punch because those were both guys who we were building around and it’s like poof… good luck getting anthing out of either guy moving forward. What do we have in Alim? I always felt he was a plus NT, but we act like he’s Aaron Donald and paid him like it. He doesn’t disrupt the pocket like an elite 3t should, even prior to the injury. It’s sad that we have by choice ceded the pass rush to use bigger players to stop the run and we couldn’t even do it when it mattered against playoff teams. We have like 15 Nose Tackles and the best big MLB in the league and we couldn’t do the one thing BH has built us to be able to do.
Enough “we’re good.” Enough Villain arrogance Brad. Recognize your failures and change it. Stop with continuing to rely on players with glass jaws. Some dudes just are not built to withstand an NFL season, or even a quarter of one (Davenport/Paschal/Levi). Even Alim’s last three seasons he played 13, 14 and 10. 6 games as a rookie. He’s played a full season ONCE in 5 seasons and we backed up the Brink’s truck for him.
Like every team (including the champs), we can improve. The areas we can improve will be discussed ad nauseam over the next four months, but know this: we cannot be great everywhere. The league doesn’t allow it (And the stronger we are at starter, the more depth we sacrifice).
This is why the champs started a 2nd year UDFA at center with almost no NFL experience, a rookie LG, a RG who their entire fanbase calls one of the worst guards in the league (Bradford), a dirt cheap TE corps, two 4th rounders at S, and scrap heap LBs.
You HAVE to put your team together with plenty of bargains, you can’t just spend up on every position. It’s not a sustainable model.
That said, what we need more than anything else is to catch a damn break. Especially when it comes to injuries. 3 of the past 4 top seeds in the NFC have made the Super Bowl in the NFL. The one exception? Us. Not because we weren’t good enough, but because we were easily the most injured (compared to both other teams that year, and compared to the other #1 seeds). This is not an opinion, this is fact. Just go look at the loss of starter’s minutes.
Nobody wants to hear what we’re lacking is luck since it can’t be controlled, but I 100% believe it’s the reason we haven’t been to at least one Super Bowl the past 3 years. And I don’t buy into that whole “we practice too hard” narrative. This is what Cooper Kupp had to say after last night’s game:
“Mike (MacDonald) did not make OTAs easy. Guys were talking about that actually earlier in the week, about how OTAs is in two weeks and that thing kicked our rear-end last year. And so it’s like ‘You’re going to come here and you’re going to work.’ But the way it builds guys togetther and then you lift each other up - once that was happening - then I knew we had something special.”
We used to run the same read and react front and couldn’t contain mobile QBs for shit.
Remember what Lamar did to us in 2023? Or Mahomes? Or Jayden Daniels? Or even Baker freaking Mayfield? Or Brock Purdy?
Yeah we put together a good gameplan against Lamar this year…and he still scored 30 points on us…but that’s about the only time we’ve “contained” a mobile QB that I can recall while running this front structure.
The Seahawks also didn’t seem to have much trouble anytime they faced a QB who could run (which I understand was not a ton).
This is the answer. Sorry for everyone who doesn’t want to hear it.
Win enough to get to the playoffs, be lucky enough to stay healthy and get favorable matchups to win the Super Bowl. That’s it. That’s the secret sauce.
I think there are ways for our defense to work, we’ve seen flashes of it like the game you mentioned against Lamar. And there are other thriving defenses that don’t play that Seahawks style. The Texans for instance.
But it is really, highly susceptible to any variance, and at the rate we’ve been injured the past couple of years, has just proved untenable. So while on the one hand I think our injuries have made the defense look worse than it actually is for a good chunk of the past two years, on the other, running a defense so vulnerable to the vagaries of the game seems somewhat bull-headed at this point.
Back to the Texans, they’ve got two studs at edge and have been remarkably healthy. I think it would probably fall apart just as quickly as ours did once they start losing guys. But I also think Ryans would probably adjust pretty quickly.
