Let me start this piece off by saying that I fully understand that December football is a totally different animal than the months that precede it. Games are going to be harder at this point. This is when all your opponents, even the bad ones, are going to be playing their best ball because they have had all season to figure it out.
With that said, the Detroit Lions can’t let things go on like this anymore. The Ravens really showed the league how to beat the Lions and they have been getting beat up on defense ever since. It gets to the point where you wonder how they won nine games because their defense is allowing offenses to hit them with chunk play after chunk play and if that’s not happening, the Lions are committing drive extending penalties on third down like they’re going out of style.
The Saints don’t have a good offense. They were 20th in offensive DVOA going into this game and despite that, they still managed to put up 362 yards and 28 points on the Lions defense. They converted on six different third downs in this game too. Those third down conversions set the Saints up for multiple touchdowns. It’s like every time the Lions defense had things under control, the Saints just laughed in their faces and converted anyways.
Yes, the Lions managed to force two turnovers and a turnover on downs in this one. They also forced a punt five times. It wasn’t their worst performance of the year by any means. But it was bad enough to have some real concern and start asking what can be done? The Lions came dangerously close to losing this game.
Is it time to take the play calling duties out of the hands of Aaron Glenn? It wouldn’t be the first time Dan Campbell has done something like that during his tenure. He took over the offense from Anthony Lynn in 2021 and the Lions were much better off for it. The big difference here is that this a 9-3 team and that was an 0-8 team. The other thing is that Campbell is an offensive coach.
If they were to make a change, what would that change look like now? Don’t expect for Aaron Glenn to get fired. Winning teams don’t really fire coordinators during a playoff push and being one of the top seeds in the conference. I wouldn’t expect the Lions to hand the playbook over to Kelvin Shepperd right now or anything like that either.
The most likely thing to happen, besides nothing, would be that the play calling would have to go through Campbell and the teams defensive coaches would have to be more of a committee than one guy calling the shots.
If not a change in the play caller, there needs to be a change in the paly calling. The Lions are getting beat by the same thing every week. Shotgun and double Hutchinson while your receivers beat the Lions corners off the line and then hit them with a big chunk play. The Lions just don’t seem to make any adjustments off that.
Here’s the thing. I know the players on the field aren’t incapable. They actually showed that they can do some things on Sunday. On Romeo Okwara’s sack late in the game, the Lions locked up all of Derrek Carr’s options with really good coverage. They are capable of doing it. I wish that you could simply say “just do that more,” but it feels like they’re not put in position to do that more.
I still think this team could do so much better if they back away from man coverage some. These corners just can’t keep up with these receivers. If they had some cushion off the line, they’d have some sort of advantage or at least a chance to make things happen.
We’ll see if the Lions make any kind of changes on defense down the stretch. They really need it and it’s time. I just don’t know what can be done at this point. I also don’t think that trading for Chase Young or Montez Sweat at the deadline was the answer for the long term health of the team.
What could really help is if this team can get James Houston and C.J. Gardner-Johnson back as soon as possible. That might be right around the corner. That would also count as a big change.
Whatever they do, they have to do something.