Monday Overreaction: I thought the Lions had to make a huge trade at cornerback. I’m not so sure anymore
Brian Branch’s return, D.J. Reed’s rebound and improved play throughout the secondary have changed the conversation around Detroit’s biggest perceived trade-deadline need.
It’s time for another Monday overreaction, and maybe this time the overreaction is about overreactions in general. I think it might be possible that we all did it early in the season. After the Lions’ loss to the Carolina Panthers, it hit a fever pitch. “The Lions need to trade for a cornerback, or it’s over.”
It’s what we all felt four weeks into the season. Looking back now, it feels kind of silly and like we overreacted to a crazy degree. So today’s overreaction is looking at the last two games and saying,
“Do the Lions even need a big trade for a cornerback right now?”
Look, here’s the thing. It’s easy to talk about what happened with the Bills. That team just kind of does that to everyone, and on a short week with no practice, most teams were going to do that. Then you might bring up the Saints and Jets games, but we’re talking about two games in which the Lions’ defense played a lot, and maybe you take back two mistakes from each game, mostly penalties, and those games don’t look anything like what they finished as.
Then you get to the last two weeks. People discounted the Lions’ performance against the Cardinals because it was the Cardinals, but then that team went out and beat the Super Bowl favorite Rams the next week. The Lions held that team to just four explosives.
Then against the Packers, a team that has been good and has had a good offense this year, was only able to put up seven explosives. The Lions won this game because of their defense. More importantly, they won this game because of their secondary. A group that allowed just two explosives in the second half.
What has changed lately? A lot, actually. Brian Branch was electric in this game and completely changed the way this team is able to defend. He looked exactly like the Branch we’ve been used to seeing. D.J. Reed is playing like D.J. Reed again. On Sunday, Reed allowed a passer rating of 56.3. Against the Cardinals, it was 67.6. He looks like a CB1 out there.
Roger McCreary has played well in the slot since getting more opportunity. Chuck Clark has been steady all season except for one game, really. Keith Abney is coming along as a hybrid, and Rock Ya-Sin and Ennis Rakestraw are adding what they can. Khalil Dorsey also just had a career game and got a game ball afterward.
It’s hard to tell the brains of media and fans that things just aren’t going to immediately gel and be awesome the moment everyone hits the field. Was the defense bad? Absolutely. Do they still need to fix some things? Absolutely. Are they looking way better? Absolutely.
So the question then is, should they go out and make a big trade? I think the answer is a combination of maybe not, and I don’t think they could, even if they wanted to. We wrote about this earlier last week and then again on Monday. The options just aren’t there. Nobody is trading cornerbacks right now. The Joey Porter move was really the only move that could be made. For what it’s worth, that hasn’t really panned out for Dallas.
Now, do I think the Lions should make a trade in general? Yeah, I do. If the Colts are willing to move Charvarius Ward or Cam Taylor-Britt, I’d go do that. But I’m not sure they need to do more than that. Again, I’m not sure they could if they wanted to.
We’ll see what happens in the coming weeks, but right now the Lions are taking multiple steps in the right direction. Now we just need to make sure we’re not overreacting about those just yet.
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