Detroit Lions: End-of-season 2018 award predictions
Defensive MVP: Jarrad Davis, LB
If we’re talking about who is the outright best player on defense, it’ll likely be Darius “Big Play” Slay, who has morphed into one of the league’s finest corners in recent years.
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With so much talent surrounding him in the secondary, however, he is not as important to this defense as Davis will be this coming season.
When the Lions drafted Jarrad Davis out of Florida, he was expected to lead their defense from the getgo after drawing comparisons to Ray Lewis in the pre-draft process.
While the bar was high, linebackers have one of the steeper learning curves in the NFL and it showed with Davis. He flew around the field and made some big hits, but often times looked confused and struggled in coverage to the point that he was removed from third down packages midway through the season.
This year, however, things will look much different. As LionsWire’s Scott Bish breaks down, Matt Patricia’s defense is built for linebackers to thrive, keeping them clean and keeping their responsibilities manageable compared to a traditional 4-3 scheme.
Jarrad Davis should see a big improvement this year based on all those factors working in his favor. He will be expected to lead not only the linebacking corps but the entire defense, and we should see the Lions count on him for much more this season.