The Detroit Lions have some big questions they are starting off the year with, especially on the defensive side of the ball. While answers seem like they will be hard to come by, a simple solution could exist.
Dan Campbell has faced more than a few questions about whether or not a shakeup should be on the horizon, and so far, he hasn't been anxious to make a move. Instead, he seems to be focusing on what must happen in-house for the Lions to turn things around.
In that vein, Campbell has made what should be an easy request for his defense. Line up correctly. Speaking on "Costa & Jansen" on 97.1 The Ticket, Campbell made it seem like the biggest way to turn things around is better organization on the defensive side in terms of positioning.
"I want our guys to be where they're supposed to be when they're supposed to be there. We need to be on point. Our discipline has got to clean up. It goes back into when one guy makes an error, we've got three more trying to cover for him instead of just doing their job. We got a little bit of a trust issue right now, so we got to get back to the basics of doing your job. Simply be where you're supposed to be. We applied a lot of pressure the other day and if we get in these spots we're supposed to be in, either it's a sack, it's a stop, or it's a turnover."
The Lions haven't gotten to the spots, and as a result, they have arguably the worst defense in the league statistically and otherwise. Campbell's implication is that the stats aren't telling the whole story, but Detroit's record is 2-2. If players had been coached better, they might be in better positions on the field and thus have a winning record.
With the NFC North's lead dog now 4-0, the margin for error is growing slimmer by the day. The Lions need to find the simple fixes Campbell is talking about, or they will risk falling behind in the playoff race. It's a long season, but teams that start slow often times struggle to make up enough ground in the end.
Campbell still backs Sheppard even after Lions' rough start to season
Players not lining up correctly or knowing their assignments would seem to be a huge indictment on the coaching staff, and more specifically the defensive coaches. In spite of that, Campbell hasn't lost faith in Sheppard despite the public firestorm and is sticking with him for now, because he believes everything has the chance to improve greatly.
"I understand all that (criticism) from afar when you look at the numbers, but I believe in Kelvin Sheppard and I believe we got a lot of meat on the bone with this defense right now. We're going to continue to tweak. We got more things that we can do with what we have here. There's different calls. We got to be more disciplined, and then we're going to give some guys more opportunities to play and we're going to find the right recipe."
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Specifically, Campbell liked the fact that with the game on the line, the defense found a way to give the offense a shot at pulling off an improbable win in spite of everything else that went wrong.
"Here's what I do know. At crunch time in that game the other day at the end of the game with our defense on the field, we got two critical stops. At the end of the day, after all of it, we had a chance to win that game and we couldn't close it out. I'll take that."
The Lions have closed out both their wins with a decent mix of offense and defense, but missed on their first real opportunity in Week 4 to win what was truly a toss up game. It's safe to say the defense will have to close out a lot more games in order for anybody to start believing in Sheppard outside of the building.
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