Normally, during a game week, I like to offer takeaways from the Detroit Lions coordinator’s three media sessions on Thursday. But with the pressure mounting on Kelvin Sheppard, I figured it made sense to just focus on his Week 5 press conference — and to be fair, Sheppard comes up with more interesting answers anyway.
So here are five takeaways from Sheppard’s media session Thursday, in charge of the Arizona Cardinals game.
He knows that empty words are worthless
Usually, Kelvin Sheppard opens his press conference by recapping previous matches, pointing out the highlights and pointing out the mistakes, promising to clean it up. This week, after another disappointing performance, Sheppard said he knew promises to solve the problem would carry no weight until there were concrete results on the field.
“Until it starts to show on Sunday, until the evidence starts to show in the game, it’s just lip service,” Sheppard said. “What we’re doing here, tying it into the game, it sounds good, but it’s just lip service. So what I will say is we didn’t play well enough defensively to help this team win this football game Sunday night against Carolina. said, these are empty words so there must be real change. There must be real evidence of change.
They let the defensive line fall
The only bright spot in Detroit’s defensive performance this year has been the play of the defensive line. The Lions rank in the top 10 in almost every pass rush metric you can think of, and Sheppard thinks they play very solid run defense in the middle of the line as well.
“The way Tyleik Williams and Alim McNeill play in the B-to-B gap, teams rarely throw the ball there and we’ve identified that now,” Sheppard said. “And then having a disruptive side with Aidan Hutchinson and now complementary pieces opposite him with (Derrick Moore) DMo and (DJ) Wonnum. We have to feed off them.”
Unfortunately, this is not yet the case. Despite pressure and decent interior defense, the Lions’ back seven made too many mental errors and lackluster play.
“I told them and the D line, ‘What we’ve done to all of you is a disservice,'” Sheppard said. “I really feel like it’s the best D-line we’ve had in my six years here since I got here in 2021. And we haven’t complemented it enough in the back end to see the benefits and take full advantage of it, which is what they should be with what the D-line is doing, especially on Sunday night. They attacked the pocket all night.”
Sheppard maintains his plan, his blitzes
Despite the early game struggles, Sheppard made it clear that he remained true to the core beliefs of the current defensive system. Plus, he’s sure things will only get worse if they abandon their beliefs and go back to square one.
“We have a certain way of saying we’re going to play,” Sheppard said. “Now, do you change things here and there? All right, you see different concepts. They attack you differently. They do – yeah, that’s football. But flat out introducing a new playbook every week because the last one didn’t go well. That, to me, leads to ultimate dysfunction and the complete breakdown of the dam.”
Sheppard was also asked about the team’s ineffective blitzes. Last Sunday, Carolina quarterback Bryce Young completed 9 of 11 passes for 95 yards and a touchdown (according to NFL Pro) against the blitz. However, Sheppard maintains they were the right choices in the right situations.
“Those calls were the right calls. Those calls were the right calls, and I’ll leave it at that.”
When asked for a follow-up on the disconnect between the right call and lack of execution, Sheppard denied providing details.
“These are private conversations that we’re having that I’m going to keep internal. Those calls were the right calls.”
As coach Dan Campbell has mentioned in recent weeks, the Lions suffer from the problem of not being in the right place at the right time, which has led to teammates overcompensating for each other and a lack of trust. So how to solve this problem?
“I told the guys this: ‘We’ve got to make sure the guys you don’t trust aren’t out there or you fix them and you get it fixed quickly,’” Sheppard said. “Because we don’t want to start doing that and have guys feel like they have to carry the weight for another guy.”
He is insulted by the suggestion that the offense must carry the defense
Coach Dan Campbell spoke repeatedly this week about the need to improve the offense, and some interpreted that as a suggestion that he was holding them to a higher standard than the defense. Despite averaging 29.8 points per game (fifth), Campbell expects even more from the unit. Is it because he knows the team has to carry the 32nd-ranked defense?
Behind the scenes, that may have been true, but Sheppard was insulted by the insinuation.
“We have a three-phase team here and I firmly believe that. And I’m going to stay strong in that belief,” Sheppard said. “I think it’s extremely disrespectful to my unit to say that someone has to carry us. We’re going to do our third here. Hell or high water. Point blank period.”
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