Aaron Glenn has been here before, as a young cornerback playing in the media capital of the world.
Glenn was coming off his first Pro Bowl in 1998 when his New York Jets played an important late-season game against the same Seattle Seahawks organization that lit up Glenn’s Detroit Lions defense for 48 points and 555 yards last week.
“Damn,” Glenn said as he realized the irony of the story he was telling Thursday.
Matched up against receiver Joey Galloway that day, Glenn gave up long touchdowns of 70 and 57 yards in the first quarter. Jets coach Bill Parcells was on his behind. Glenn felt his star falling from “the hottest thing ever” to “the worst thing that there is.” And he settled down, didn’t allow a completion to Galloway the rest of the game and finished with an interception in a controversial Jets win.
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“The thing is, man, you just have to go back to your fundamentals and have faith in who you are and what you’ve done and your background and your history tells your story,” Glenn said. “That one to two plays doesn’t tell your story, that one game doesn’t tell your story. So I look at this like this: I mean, these couple games doesn’t tell my story. My track record speaks for itself and I’m going to continue to let that speak. So we’re going to get this thing fixed, we’re going to get this thing moving forward, our guys are going to respond, our coaches are going to respond and things are going to be all right.”
Glenn and the Lions’ NFL-worst defense have come under intense scrutiny this week after they failed to force a punt in last week’s 48-45 shootout loss to the Seahawks.
The Lions rank last in the league in scoring, total, red-zone and third-down defense, and their many shortcomings on that side of the ball look even more blighted next to their league-best offense.
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Glenn said he is not worried about his job security as coordinator. Lions coach Dan Campbell has given Glenn two public votes of confidence in recent days, but the Lions are shuffling defensive personnel ahead of this week’s game against the New England Patriots and have a bye next week.
Last year, Campbell demoted offensive coordinator Anthony Lynn during the bye week, and the offense improved almost immediately.
“The one thing I don’t worry about is job security,” Glenn said. “I’ve been blessed to play this game for a long time and I’ve been blessed to coach it for a long time and every day I get up I enjoy doing what I do. I will say this, even though me and Dan are friends, this is a job and I’ll look at it like that, too, that I have to perform. Just like everybody else has to perform, he has to perform, the players have to perform. When things are not going well you have to answer to that. And I’m not blind to the fact of that.”
Ugly numbers aside, Glenn said the Lions defense is performing well in some areas.
Rookies Malcolm Rodriguez (32 tackles, tied for second-most on the team) and Aidan Hutchinson (a team-high three sacks) are off to good starts, and Glenn was complimentary Thursday of the play of interior defensive linemen Isaiah Buggs and Alim McNeill.
Collectively, though, the unit has been an abject failure, allowing 35.3 points per game and surrendering more than 200 yards rushing in two of their four games this season.
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“We’re really motivated to fix everything cause as a defense you’re thinking, ‘Man, the offense is putting up 30 points a game, you shouldn’t lose,’ so it’s like it’s on us,” defensive lineman Demetrius Taylor said. “We know it’s on us to fix what we got going on and that’s what we plan on doing.”
Glenn attributed the Lions’ defensive issues last week to “some fundamental things that we’ve got to really get better at.” Tackling was a problem. Assignment errors on the perimeter hampered the run defense. And the Lions have struggled to generate pressure with their four-man rush all season.
Just as he had faith in his fundamentals and who he was as a cornerback in that game against Galloway 24 years ago, Glenn said he’s encouraged his players to do the same this week.
He compared the Lions’ struggles to what the Kansas City Chiefs went through last fall, when they allowed an average of 32.6 points per game through the first five weeks of the season then solved their defensive issues and went on to win the AFC West and reach the conference championship game.
After their slow start, the Chiefs held eight of their next 10 opponents to 14 points or less and finished the season 11th in total defense and eighth in points allowed.
“At some point, those veterans, the leaders of that team put stakes in the ground and said this is not us,” Glenn said. “So at some point, this thing is going to change but you’ve got to have the mindset, you’ve got to have the guys and you’ve got to have the coaches that’s able to do that.”
Even with a young defense — the Lions started three rookies last week and have one player 30 or older (Michael Brockers) on that side of the ball — Glenn said the Lions have the pieces for a turnaround in place.
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He touted belief as “a powerful drug,” and said his wife gave a good reminder that starts with him believing in himself this week.
“I guess you can say that I’ve been built and I’ve been hardened to be able to handle things like this,” Glenn said. “It’s funny, cause after that game, so me and my wife, we go and eat somewhere and I’m just bitching about everything. But after I finish, she’s like, ‘Are you done?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah.’ She’s like, ‘Well, go be A.G. Go be A.G. You’re built for this.’ And she’s right. And that’s what I’m excited about. Like this is a great opportunity for me, great opportunity for my staff, great opportunity for some of these players who are going to get a chance, so that’s what excites me cause I know me, I know how I’ll respond to things like this. And man, I can’t wait for it.”
Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.