It was inevitable whenever Aaron Glenn left for a head coaching job, and it happened. Kelvin Sheppard was promoted from linebackers coach to be the new Detroit Lions' defensive coordinator in January. He was being groomed for the role by Glenn, and head coach Dan Campbell was part of the process that gave Sheppard more responsibility over the last couple years.
Sheppard made it clear during last season that he was ready for his opportunity to be a defensive coordinator, and as other opportunities came his way this offseason he unsurprisingly prioritized staying with Campbell.
"It means everything to me,” Sheppard said to Dan Miller of Fox 2, regarding Campbell's trust and support. “It’s the reason I chose to stay here over other opportunities. It would have been almost impossible to take another job, no matter what."
As much as Glenn's mentorship and Campbell's faith in him matters a lot to Sheppard, there was an extra layer to his promotion to defensive coordinator that mattered to him even more.
Kelvin Sheppard reveals most meaningful part of promotion to defensive coordinator
Sheppard spoke with Lions reporters on Tuesday at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis. It was a wide-ranging session, and he talked about support from players after his promotion.
"That means the most to me. I’m going to be honest, and it’s no slight to anybody else, but the players mean the most to me by far because that is who goes out and does it,” Sheppard said, via Kory Woods of MLive. “You could say what you want. We could have all these philosophies and narratives and all this, but it’s about them. And if you don’t have the belief in them, I don’t have anything, to be honest with you."
"And the defensive guys — I’m really close to guys like (Aidan Hutchinson), (Alex Anzalone), (Malcolm Rodriguez) — so that kind of didn’t shock me that much. It was very appreciated.”
Sheppard obviously doesn't have a lot of interactions with the Lions' offensive players. But they can certainly observe and appreciate what he does from afar. Sheppard mentioned multiple offensive players who reached out to him after he was promoted (Amon-Ra St. Brown, David Montgomery, Jahmyr Gibbs, Jameson Williams), including someone whose phone number he didn't even have up that point.
"Guys like Jared Goff, who I didn’t even have his cell phone number,” Sheppard said. “He texted me, he’s like, ‘Hey, this is JG.’ And I was like, ‘What up?’ And just his outpouring of happiness for me—telling me he thought I deserved it, he was excited—and I told him how excited I was to have him as the quarterback on the other side."
As many interviews as Campbell did to fill out his coaching staff, there was only one reported interview of another candidate to replace Glenn. Sheppard was always going to be the guy, and the support he has gotten from players across the roster fortifies that he was the right choice.
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