The proverbial Achilles' heel for the Detroit Lions last season was their pass defense, which ranked near the bottom of the league in any metric you can find. A second straight offseason run at remodeling the cornerback depth chart has seemingly bore better fruit, and opened up the idea Brian Branch will switch from nickel corner to safety this year.
When the Lions drafted him in 2022, Kerby Joseph was considered a raw ballhawk after intercepting five passes in the lone college season he exclusively played safety. He had four interceptions as a rookie, including a couple notable ones off Aaron Rodgers, and he followed that with a matching quartet of interceptions last season. He had a total of 19 pass breakups over his two seasons.
In a broad sense, the arrow is still pointing up nicely for Joseph entering his third season. Better cornerback play and a better Lions' pass rush should provide him more opportunities to make plays.
Lions safety Kerby Joseph has a lofty goal for this season
After the Lions' last of four initial non-padded training camp practices on Saturday, Joseph talked about takeaways as a key means for a defense to limit the points scored against it. However obvious that is, he also declared a bold individual goal for the coming season after leading the Lions in interceptions each of the last two years.
"For sure, I want to lead the league in interceptions....That’s one of my main goals. I want to be more consistent. I want to be more of a leader on the defense.”
With a h/t to Justin Rogers of Detroit Football Network, over the past decade the NFL leader in interceptions has averaged 7.9 per season. The Lions have two guys lead the league in interceptions in fairly recent years, Glover Quinn (seven in 2014) and Darius Slay (eight; tied for the league lead in 2018).
Joseph is basically a veteran leader now in the Lions' secondary. As for leading the league in interceptions this year, it's not out of the realm of possibility.