The Detroit Lions are coming off a big win over the Minnesota Vikings, which makes this the perfect time for another edition of Why Aren’t We Talking About This? This week, it’s Lions cornerback DJ Reed and the turnaround he has put together. Reed is playing some of the best football in the NFL right now, and almost nobody is talking about it.

I know the secondary is supposed to be the weakest part of this team. People will point to what happened in the first four games of the season against Buffalo, New Orleans, New York, and Carolina. But what we’ve seen from the Lions over the last three weeks has been driven by improvements in the secondary, and a lot of that comes back to Reed.

What went wrong for DJ Reed early

For starters, those first four games were bad. Nobody is going to argue that. Detroit was trying some different things on defense, and those changes played a big part in why things looked so ugly.

Everybody says the Lions play too much man coverage. Over the first four weeks, they played just 20.1% man coverage and 79.9% zone.

That matters for Reed. His whole calling card when the Lions signed him was that he was great in man coverage. For whatever reason, Detroit decided not to use him that way.

The results weren’t pretty. Reed allowed 13 catches on 20 targets for 261 yards and two touchdowns in that stretch, along with a 125.6 passer rating allowed. That’s not just bad. It’s awful.

The Lions went back to what works

Since then, the Lions have gone back to playing the way they’re used to playing. They’ve used significantly more man coverage over the last three games, around 31%, and that has let Reed play the way he plays best.

The results have been unreal.

The Vikings game was the high point. Reed was targeted five times and allowed one catch for 11 yards. He also had an interception and a pass breakup. The passer rating allowed? 0.0.

Zoom out to the full three-game stretch, and it still looks great. Reed has been targeted 14 times and allowed six catches for 41 yards with no touchdowns. Opposing quarterbacks have a combined 41.3 passer rating throwing at him.

This isn’t just good football or great football. It’s elite football.

Over the last three weeks, Reed is the third-highest graded cornerback in the league with a 90.5 grade, per Pro Football Focus. The two players ahead of him haven’t come close to his workload. Daylon Everett sits at No. 1, but he has played only 23 snaps in that span. Kyler Gordon has played in two games and logged 48 snaps. Reed has played well over 100.

When you factor in the volume, Reed has been the best cornerback in the NFL over the last three weeks. Period.

Detroit still needs help across from him

If Reed keeps playing like this, the Lions can reach the heights they want to reach. That doesn’t mean everything is solved, though.

Roger McCreary has struggled. Ennis Rakestraw played only one snap against the Vikings on Sunday. Detroit still needs somebody across from Reed, and I still think it needs to make a trade.

If the Lions went out this week and landed a corner like Riq Woolen or Charvarius Ward, it would vault this defense to another level. Pair a player like that with the version of Reed we’ve seen lately, and the secondary goes from the thing everyone worries about to something opposing offenses have to worry about.

Some people still want to believe the secondary is as bad as it looked early. But things are turning around for the Lions defense, and Reed’s play over the last three weeks is the biggest reason why.

We need to be talking about it a lot more.