Freep: Detroit Lions camp questions: Is secondary ready for prime time?

The Den
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Detroit Lions camp questions: Is secondary ready for prime time?

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Secondary concerns

The Lions have one of the most talented rosters in the NFL, but there are significant concerns about a secondary that will open camp without both of its starting safeties and two of its top three cornerbacks from last season.

New-look OL

It’s too simplistic to pin the Lions’ struggles last season solely on their offensive line, but the team poured plenty of resources into the unit this offseason for good reason

….Surely there will be some growing pains with so many new faces; longtime starters Taylor Decker and Graham Glasgow are gone, and the Lions have a pending competition at left guard. But the line is younger and healthier, and if it finds its footing in training camp, it may develop into one of the best in the NFL again.

Petzing’s playbook

The Lions are on their third offensive coordinator and fourth play-caller in three seasons, and even if Drew Petzing’s playbook isn’t dramatically different from the one used by Ben Johnson and John Morton, there are nuances players and coaches still are getting used to.

…..Campbell said the offense spent the spring drilling down on a few key concepts and tricking them out with different stacks, shifts and motions. The Lions could play their starters more in games this preseason. Even if they don’t, the offense needs to hit the ground running in the regular season given it likely will shoulder more of the burden of winning again.

Year 2 breakouts

Brad Holmes built a championship-caliber roster with excellent drafts in 2021-23, then whiffed on Arnold and others in 2024. The 2025 class showed some promise in its first season, and the Lions are counting on several players from that draft to take major steps forward this fall.

First-round pick Tyleik Williams should serve as the Lions’ regular nose tackle after playing a rotational role as a rookie. Second-rounder Tate Ratledge had a promising first year at right guard. And third-rounder Isaac TeSlaa is ticketed for the No. 3 receiving job this fall.

There is genuine excitement about all three players in Allen Park, but training camp and the preseason will be the true judge of what trajectory they’re on.

Contractual matters

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The secondary is the biggest question mark on this team. Will our CB’s be worth a shit? Did Kirby’s knee die?

My main focus is going to be how fast our O-line gels. IMO, that’s going to make or break our season.

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The secondary AND the lack of a seasoned DC will be the Achilles heal of this team again this year

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If you believe Shepard is a finished product as a DC then you may be correct.
Being an optimist I think we will see more of the first half 2025 DC than the 2nd half 2025 DC.
Granted just another opinion as we saw two versions last year. One good one bad.

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Someone on reddit posted a pic of Kerby recovering in the hospital looking great. And multiple have had phone calls with him. Apologies if this has been posted already

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IMG_92611164×1608 241 KB

Credit u/sirrothschold313

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…nice pic, however, I’ma wait until I see pics of him running and cutting and jumping and doing football things at and NFL level before I get too optomistic :man_shrugging:. Hell, I can sit down with an Asian gamgam and say I’m feeling great and ready to run a 60k…:grimacing:

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AI slop.

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Yup - I think they’ll be great. Fraley is amazing, and we have some continuity already. Different guys…AND…different playbook could take a bit, but our schedule is easiest in the beginning, as well. All systems go! Minimum 13 wins, with a much higher ceiling.

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I think Shepard will be fine.

The big reason for the Jekyl and Hyde season is because injuries in the secondary forced him to stop being aggressive with his LBers and instead he had to play them off ball and drop them into coverage to support the secondary issues. This made our run defense leak big plays.

Add in the fact he didn’t have the personnel to run sub packages and our defense became predictable on top of it all.

He’s more of a newer philosophy style than AG was and he’s more about applying pressure up front than he is about dropping guys into coverage. I expect him and the defense to look better as they will be more aggressive upfront.

I also think the fact that both of our starting safeties being out of camp means the backups will be far more prepared to handle their roles.

My big concern is our starting safeties….. their the identity of our defense. Without them our defense isn’t the same.

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It very well could be, but I just wanted to add this. I had read an article and now cannot find it, that Kerby was apparently over in South Korea getting an experimental stem cell treatment in his knee to try to regenerate the joint cartilage. It’s not approved in the US, but has shown early promise. It is possible this picture was from those procedures.

For the record, I believe Kerby is done. He has been off of football for 8 months now, and if that amount of rest isn’t healing anything, nothing is. At some point, Kerby will practice and once he does, the question will be does his knee swell back up. That’s what I think will happen.

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Would be a shame, this granny would be perfect for @Bols