Detroit has allowed the most points, the most yards, the most first downs, the most explosive plays, the most passing yards and the most air yards in the NFL. The Lions are 2-2 after losing 32-26 to Carolina on Sunday night.
Dan Campbell was asked about defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard on Tuesday and backed him without qualification.
“But I believe in Kelvin Sheppard, and I believe we got a lot of meat on the bone with this defense right now,” Campbell said.
The numbers are not all bad, which is the odd part
Detroit ranks second in the NFL in sacks with 15 and fourth in quarterback pressures with 51. The pass rush is working. The problem is everything that happens when the rush does not get home, which is apparently all of it.
A defense that generates pressure at a top-five rate and still leads the league in yards and points allowed has a coverage problem, a structure problem, or both. Being first in explosive plays allowed points at structure. Teams are not nickel-and-diming Detroit. They are hitting big plays.
Campbell’s standard is still the standard
He did not soften the expectation while defending his coordinator. “We’re not going to be mediocre. I don’t accept that,” Campbell said, and then repeated it: “But we’re not going to accept mediocrity. That’s not what we’re doing here.”
That is the tension. Campbell is saying mediocrity is unacceptable while declining to change the person overseeing the worst statistical defense in football. Both things can be true for a few weeks. They cannot both be true in December.
Why backing Sheppard makes sense anyway
Firing a coordinator in October almost never works. The replacement is someone already on staff, running the same personnel with less preparation and no mandate. Teams that do it are usually buying time for the head coach, not fixing the defense.
Campbell is not in that position. He has built Detroit into a team that does not panic, and the roster has four games of data rather than a season. There is also a real argument that the sack and pressure numbers suggest the front is ahead of the back end, and that coverage can improve faster than a pass rush can be invented.
Whether the personnel supports that is a separate question. Detroit’s defense has been reshaped repeatedly, and at some point meat on the bone has to become points off the board.
The schedule will answer it
Detroit is 2-2 in an NFC where San Francisco, Minnesota and Chicago are all ahead of it in the standings and the Vikings are 4-0. The Lions have been a playoff team built on scoring enough to outrun their defense. That plan has a ceiling, and the Carolina loss is what it looks like when the offense puts up 26 and it is not enough.
Campbell has committed publicly. The next month decides whether that was conviction or stubbornness.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.