Detroit Lions GM has knack for finding gems at safety — and may have found his best yet

One thing the Los Angeles Rams excelled at when Brad Holmes was the team’s director of college scouting in 2013-20 was finding and developing undervalued gems at safety.

Lamarcus Joyner, a 2014 second-round pick, played well enough in his first four seasons that the Rams used the franchise tag to keep him around for Year 5.

John Johnson, a third-round pick in 2017, was one of the top defensive free agents to hit the market in 2021 after starting most of his four seasons in L.A.

Nick Scott, a seventh-rounder in 2019, started in last season’s Super Bowl, replacing Jordan Fuller, a sixth-rounder in 2020, who was injured in the regular season finale. And Taylor Rapp, a second-rounder in 2019, started every game for the Rams last season and tied for the team lead with four interceptions.

Holmes has a knack for identifying playmakers at the position, and he may have found his best yet in Detroit Lions rookie Kerby Joseph.

Joseph, a third-round pick out of Illinois, made his fifth start of the season Sunday in place of the injured Tracy Walker and forced his third and fourth turnovers of the year. He made bone-rattling hits to jar loose fumbles in losses to the Dallas Cowboys and Miami Dolphins, and just missed interceptions in both games.

On Sunday, playing against the Green Bay Packers and his favorite player as a kid, Aaron Rodgers, Joseph got his first two career interceptions. He made a heads-up play to corral his first on a pass deflected off teammate Derrick Barnes’ helmet, and undercut a throw intended for tight end Robert Tonyan to snag his second near the end zone.

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“I really love playing with Kerby Joseph,” veteran Lions safety DeShon Elliott said. “I love him being my safety back there with me, just cause I know like we’re going to play off each other and I know I’m going to feed off his energy, he’s going to feed off mine.”

Joseph slipped to the third round of April’s draft because of his inexperience and questions about his 40-yard dash time (he did not run at the combine). Recruited as a two-way player out of high school, Joseph split his time in college between the receiver and defensive back positions before becoming a full-time starter at safety last year.

He led the Illini with five interceptions and three fumble recoveries, and while it was clear he was learning the game when he showed up for Lions training camp in July, his ball skills have translated quickly to the NFL.

“Kerby’s been, for three weeks now he has not come off the field and we’re just letting him grow, but he’s been so close,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said. “I swear, every week we talk about, ‘Man, he is (close).’ The first time he missed one of those interceptions, he was about an inch away. And then the next one, he was about half an inch away. And so now, he’s starting to feel it. He’s got a little bit of – he’s got some instincts to him, some ballhawk instincts, but that was good to see.”

Elliott said he pegged Joseph for a ballhawk the first day the two met.

“I mean, his hands were bigger than mine and I got huge hands,” Elliott said. “For somebody to have bigger hands than me you got to be able to get that ball, for real.”

Joseph’s most impressive play Sunday wasn’t an interception but the pass breakup he had on another Rodgers throw early in the third quarter. Joseph lined up as a stand-up blitzer at the line of scrimmage and dropped into coverage as the underneath defender on slot receiver Samori Toure.

Rodgers undrew Toure on a long pass downfield, but Joseph covered 40 yards in a flash and made a leaping deflection with his left hand to force a punt.

The rookie left Sunday’s game with a brain injury after taking a friendly-fire hit from Jeff Okudah, but health permitting, should be a fixture on the Lions defense the rest of the season. A week shy of his 22nd birthday, if he continues the trend he’s on, it could be even longer than that.

Four more thoughts on Sunday’s 15-9 win and where the Lions (2-6) stand heading into their final nine games:

Birk’s-eye view

∎ Joseph wasn’t the only young defender to impress Sunday, and really that has been the one saving grace for the Lions’ disappointing defense this year. Between defensive linemen Aidan Hutchinson (who had an interception against the Packers), Josh Paschal and Alim McNeill, linebackers Malcolm Rodriguez and Barnes (who had 12 tackles and a sack), and defensive backs Joseph and Okudah, the Lions have a collection of under-25 talent they hope will be the nucleus of their future defensive success.

I don’t see enough playmakers in that group, especially in the front seven, but Hutchinson and Okudah are foundational players with big upsides. If the Lions can add another pass rusher in next spring’s draft and fortify their injury risks in the secondary, they won’t be the dregs of the NFL on defense for long.

The one risk building a young defense, and why it’s imperative they find a rookie quarterback to hitch their wagon to soon, is that a balloon payment eventually will come due to keep their core intact. It’s a few years down the road – Okudah is the only third-year player of the bunch, and the Lions almost certainly will pick up his fifth-year option next spring – but that was part of the thinking behind last week’s T.J. Hockenson trade, too.

The Lions weren’t going to re-sign Hockenson, not for top tight end money, at least. Hockenson will be eligible for free agency by the time the Lions have a chance of being good, and by that time the Lions should have other players hand-picked by this regime they’ll need to take care of.

∎ If you saw the locker room video the Lions posted on Twitter of Campbell giving Aaron Glenn a game ball, you know how genuinely excited players were for their embattled defensive coordinator.

The Lions were awful defensively through seven games, and needed a performance like Sunday’s to get back on track. Three takeaways against a future Hall of Fame quarterback (as washed-up as he looked) and a solid day stopping the run can be a springboard for a better second half of the season, even if Glenn’s job isn’t secure.

I thought Campbell’s comments about fired defensive backs coach Aubrey Pleasant were interesting, too.

“There’s a lot of good coaches that things happen to, and he’s a hell of a coach,” Campbell said. “He’s going to land on his feet and he’s going to rise back up again and he’s going to be probably a head coach one day. That’s how much I think of him. But that’s unfortunately, just where we were at.”

That’s the reality of the NFL, good coaches get fired. Pleasant once upon a time was an offensive assistant on staff with Kyle Shanahan, Sean McVay, Mike McDaniel and Matt LaFleur, most of whom were let go in Washington and have gone on to become some of the best coaches in the NFL. Sometimes teams need a scapegoat or a change in the message to get going.

∎ The Lions fell from first to fifth in next year’s draft order with Sunday’s victory, and with winnable games upcoming against the Chicago Bears on Sunday, and Jacksonville Jaguars and Carolina Panthers before Christmas, their chances of landing the No. 1 overall pick don’t seem great.

I get the frustration from some fans who reached out via email and Twitter after Sunday’s game, but I almost always will fall on the side of NFL teams should play to win as many games as possible, especially at this point in the season, and I think that’s true with the Lions this year.

First, there is no slam-dunk Andrew Luck/Trevor Lawrence type at the top of the draft (and history has shown even those type of prospects don’t always pan out). Second, a young team like the Lions needs to experience as much success as possible, both to learn how to do it and get rewarded for their work.

The NFL is a long season. Losing games is a drag. Cornerback Jerry Jacobs said Sunday the Lions’ five-game losing streak was so painstaking that players “felt like we were losing each other.”

I don’t think the Lions have some magical playoff run in them now that they’ve tasted victory again, and I’ll bet if you gave people in the organization truth serum, they don’t, either. But Sunday’s win was a needed exhale for everyone involved.

“This week was tough,” Lions quarterback Jared Goff said. “And it was coming off of a game where, again, we had it in hand and we let it slip away, and it’s always hard going back on Wednesday after those games. But again, I’m so proud of these guys. It’s so hard, and you guys don’t make it any easier, certainly. But it’s so hard to continue to do that, and we just do. We just do. We’ll never lay down, and I know there are teams across this league that will, and we’re not one of them.”

∎ I’ll have my midseason grades coming this weekend — spoiler alert, the marks won’t be good — but I figure I’ll end this column with a prediction for the second half.

I still think the Lions get to six wins, with an outside chance at seven: They will beat Jacksonville and Carolina, split with Chicago — though Justin Fields might run for 120 yards – and win one game somewhere out of the blue, maybe against one of the New York teams in the next few weeks.

The Lions don’t have enough defensively to stop the high-powered offenses they face – Buffalo might put up 50 on Thanksgiving — but they can win low-scoring games even with their mounting injuries on offense and Goff’s inconsistent play.

That should put them in line for the 10th pick or so in April’s draft, and make it maddening to watch whatever mediocre teams get wildcard spots in the NFC playoffs. Currently, the San Francisco 49ers (4-4) own the final postseason bid.

As bad as the Lions have been, they’d be in the playoff hunt if that Vikings game had gone differently in late September. When we write the season review in January, we’ll look back on that as the one that got away.

Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.