In total, the Lions defense was pretty bad in 2022. Sure there was a tale of two halves, and we'll get to that, but it's hard to look at the stats and come away thinking the Lions defense didn't need some overhauling going into the offseason. 

The spot where the Lions got burned the most was on the ground. The Lions allowed 2,491 rushing yards in 2022. That's the fourth most in the league. They gave up 146.5 yards per game. While the team did get better in the second half of the season, it was ultimately the beating they took on the ground against the Panthers that killed their playoff hopes. 

After an offseason of adding new coaches, free agents and draft picks, will the Lions have a better go at it in 2023? Let's take a look. 

Let's first dive a little deeper into 2022 and see what we can find and maybe that'll help us answer our overall question. 

We talked about the season being a tale of two halves. Things really started to turn around for the Lions in Week 9 when they beat the Packers. There's a belief that the Lions defense got better down the stretch and there's some truth to that in other areas like their play against the pass and their ability to force turnovers. But they actually got worse against the run on a per game basis. 

Prior to that Packers game, the Lions had allowed 1,084 of their 2,491 yards in their first eight games. That's 135.5 yards per game. In the next 10 games they allowed 1,407 yards. That's 140.7 yards per game. Not a drastic difference, but it shows that the Lions got worse in this area. 

Their greatest weakness was against the running quarterback. The Lions allowed exactly 700 yards of rushing to quarterbacks in 2022. That's 28.2% of the rushing yards that the Lions allowed. That might not seem that big, but that's very big. 

What did the Lions do to counteract this in the offseason? It's hard to say they did much. The Lions really seemed to compartmentalize a lot in the offseason and their focus seemed to be more drawn to making their offense more dangerous and preventing the pass on defense.

The latter was pretty important. The Lions did allow the third most passing yards int he league last season. You can't fault the team for focusing on fixing that area over most anything else. 

But they neglected to go out and strengthen their defensive line. The expectation from most was that they would go out and get nose tackle from either free agency or the draft. They did do that when they drafted Brodric Martin in the third round, but ultimately it seems, at least at this time, that Martin is going to be something of a project for the Lions. 

Outside of Martin, the Lions mostly just brought back the same guys as last year. There's still time to go out and make a few moves here and there. The Lions are currently the betting favorite to land Chase Young. We talked about what that might cost earlier in the week.  

The Lions also hired a brand new defensive line coach after Todd Wash left the team to go to the Carolina Panthers. John Scott Jr. will take over this role. 

Scott Jr. has a lot of experience coaching the defensive line. Most recently with Penn State. Scott Jr's coaching had the Nittany Lions allowing the 18th fewest rushing yards in the country last year. That's out of 131 teams. That's not bad at all. Can he bring that to the NFL? We'll soon see. 

The concern here is that the Lions are going to face some tough teams in competition in 2023. If running quarterbacks is a problem, then this is the year to fix it. Especially when you have to face guys like Patrick Mahomes, Justin Fields and Lamar Jackson. 

There's still plenty of time to figure out what this thing is going to look like in camp and preseason. Right now, it feels like a bit of concern. We'll see if it winds up actually being one or not soon. 

Feature image by Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK