Statistics can have a way of flattening a highly variable performance. In this particular case, when the D was good it was good, and when it was bad it was very bad. It seemed like they generated a lot of 3rd-and-longs, only to subsequently give up the big play.
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This is exactly what I was trying to say… Down to down they were good, but they gave up 1st downs on 3rd and 4th down at in opportune times.
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I get so frustrated by this I want to stop watching the game at that point haha. It bugs me to no end.
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That wasn’t the issue.
The issue was he lost 3 probowl level starters is Alim, BB and Kirby a starting DE, a starting LBer and his top 3 CB’s all to injury.
He did not have the personnel to run sub packages that’s why the second half of the season we ran very little outside of a base defensive package. This wasn’t by design it was by necessity. He didn’t have the bodies to run a normal defense.
Then the Lions made the decision to have their LBers play off ball and drop into coverage to help support the defensive secondary. This took support away from our run defense.
As a result we started giving up bigger running plays and running a base defense made it far easier for teams to exploit the secondary that was in shambles. Look at how few a big plays we gave up early in the season compared towards the end. That’s the result of injuries.
There’s not much a DC can do to stop the bleeding. All he can do is his best to manage the hemorrhage and hope we don’t bleed to death.
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I think there is something to this.
MCDC may be course correcting himself.
He overdid things in his early years as a HC. Took over play calling duties twice. The massive coffees he was famous for say he was perhaps pushing himself beyond what normal sleep/rest schedules allow.
So this year they cancel rookie camp, cancel local combine, no joint practices. All the coaches and wives go up to Petoskey for a getaway. Seems he realized he needed a work/life balance. Good on him.
Now he’s back with a clear head and focused on the work at hand.
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Age is likely the culprit.
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TBD. I am not against him at all….I am more pushing back on the idea that DC will blindly stay loyal to a coordinator who is underperforming. AG’s issues as a DC was talent and at times scheme related….it had nothing to do with coaching. Conversely, Shep really fell apart when the secondary went down. He was really really good the first 5-7 games. I am not sure how it will turn out, but I trust Dan and he trusts Shep for now.
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Since you’re one of the smartest posters here, I am betting you have not TRIED to understand DVOA.
These would be a massive minus according to DVOA. DVOA takes into account context. Points and yards do not.
While it’s true that I’ve not committed much time to exploring the ins and outs of this particular measurement, I don’t know that this really affects my overall point.
Standard counting stats, which I would argue don’t do a bad job of gauging team defense, show the defense to be somewhere between below-average to bottom-quartile. This also meshes well with the eye test and the overall lack of success the team had (in spite of a top offense by all measures).
Then, you have this other measurement that says, “No, the 2025 Detroit Lions defense was actually a top-ten performer.” Right or wrong, that’s a pretty extreme outlier.
I’m not averse to the idea that the outlier measurement could be right, but I do require an explanation as to how that could be. The points against and yards stats are what they are. On top of that, I think most would agree that the defensive performance largely looked and felt like it was among the worst in the league, not among the best. In order for the DVOA rank to be accurate - that the 2025 Lions defense was “actually” a top-ten defense - the explanation would have to involve the defense being put in situations an order of magnitude worse than league average and simultaneously having terrible luck / bounces on top of that.
The simplest and most self-consistent explanation is that DVOA isn’t very descriptive of the defensive performance of the 2025 Lions. It’s far easier for me to believe that their formula isn’t a good fit for that situation than it is for me to believe that what I saw last year was a top-third defense in the NFL.
Then you need to spend some time looking into the DVOA metric.
I’ll even do some work for you and give you a link to get started:
https://ftnfantasy.com/nfl/dvoa-explainer
I do agree by the time the year ended, we did not look like a top third defense. But its easy to remember the last few weeks of the season as an eye test. Our defense did get worse as the injuries piled up. And our DVOA did go down as the season progressed, just like points surrendered and yards surrendered did.
Defenses can give up meaningless points and yards. DVOA attempts to look at the defenses’ performance in context of the game situation.
DVOA isn’t perfect, at the end of the day its a model. Its tweaked from time to time in an attempt to predict overall team performance (their record). Its been shown in the past to predict a team’s record better than points or yards.
Let me know what you think after you’ve spent some time on DVOA.