The Lions should seriously consider taking defensive play-calling away from Kelvin Sheppard after rock bottom in Carolina; who the realistic replacements are now
Detroit’s defensive problems have gone well beyond one bad night, and Sunday’s 32-26 loss to Carolina should force Campbell to consider handing the calls to someone else on his staff.
Look, I get it. It’s early. It’s only Week 4, and moves like this don’t usually happen this early in an NFL season. But after Sunday night’s loss to the Carolina Panthers, I think it’s time for the Detroit Lions to start seriously considering taking the defensive play calling away from Kelvin Sheppard.
I know that’s a drastic step. Changing who calls the defense isn’t something you do on a whim. It’s a gigantic change with a lot of moving pieces, and you need somebody ready to step in. At this point, it’s fair to say Sheppard, unfortunately, isn’t that guy.
The Lions defense is broken
I don’t know if Sheppard is in over his head, if there’s an unwillingness to adapt, or if he’s consistently putting his players in bad spots. What I do know is it’s not working. This also isn’t a situation where the defense could be a little better if a couple of things got fixed. It’s systematically bad. It’s structurally bad. It’s broken, and I don’t see a path to improvement.
The Lions are allowing over 400 yards a game. Yes, they’re 2-2, but they were lucky to escape the New Orleans Saints and New York Jets with wins. Then Carolina came in and embarrassed them. That wasn’t a simple loss. That was as rough and as ugly as it gets.
The low point came when the Panthers kept their offense on the field on fourth-and-4 around midfield, possibly even in their own territory. They threw a 10-yard pass, kept trucking down the field, and scored a touchdown. Then they did it again later in the game. That’s a team that knew it could do whatever it wanted.
It’s the same story every week. Detroit gets a third-and-long with a chance to get off the field and give the offense a shot to pull ahead. It doesn’t happen. Another conversion. The Lions came into the season wanting to mix man coverage, zone, and nickel looks. They’ve abandoned all of it.
To be fair, part of this is personnel. Detroit desperately needs help at cornerback. You could bring the greatest defensive coordinator who ever lived back to life, and I’m not sure he’d fix that. The safeties, Chuck Clark and Christian Izien, are really the only secondary players grading out somewhat well.
Lions coach Dan Campbell was asked about a possible change after the loss.
“I’m not talking about that,” Campbell said.
He did add that he reserves the right to make a change at defensive coordinator if he feels it’s right for the team. Then he gave his usual line about always doing what’s right for the players. I’d argue this is what’s right for the players. Sunday night was rock bottom.
Who calls the defense for the Lions instead?
I’m not saying fire Sheppard. I’m saying do what Detroit did last year with John Morton. Take the play calling away, tell him maybe he gets it back down the road, and have him help out somewhere else.
The obvious candidate is Jim O’Neil. He’s the assistant head coach and coaches the safeties, which happens to be the only part of the secondary playing well. O’Neil was the Cleveland Browns’ defensive coordinator in 2014 and 2015 under Mike Pettine. He then ran the San Francisco 49ers’ defense in 2016 under Chip Kelly. He also spent a couple of years as Northwestern’s defensive coordinator.
That 2016 season wasn’t pretty. The 49ers gave up an NFL-worst 480 points, but they didn’t have the personnel, and O’Neil went out the door when Kelly’s entire staff was fired. I thought he was better in Cleveland, where Pettine was let go shortly after.
Another option is defensive line coach Kacy Rodgers. He was the Jets’ defensive coordinator from 2015 to 2018 under Todd Bowles, then followed Bowles to Tampa Bay and won a Super Bowl as the Buccaneers’ defensive line coach. David Corrao also has college defensive coordinator experience, but that’s about it.
My guess is it would be O’Neil. Maybe you even go with co-coordinators in O’Neil and Rodgers.
Forget about Jim Schwartz
I know everybody wants to bring up Jim Schwartz. You can’t. Schwartz resigned from the Browns, but he’s still technically under contract with Cleveland. The Browns didn’t release him, which is why he isn’t coaching anywhere this year. He’s expected to take the season off and land somewhere next year.
On top of that, he wants to be a head coach. Why would he come back to the franchise that fired him just to take what amounts to a demotion? So cancel that idea out of your head.
I don’t know exactly what the Lions do next, but they can’t keep doing this. Everybody tried, and it stinks that it didn’t work out. But it didn’t. It’s time to move on. Let’s see if Campbell agrees.
Detroit Lions News