Well, it was bound to happen. Kelvin Sheppard has officially been Lionized.
The Detroit Lions defensive coordinator shouldn’t feel too bad. After all, it happens to the best of them – and definitely the worst, with this franchise.
Sometimes getting Lionized means a coach wondering what he has to do to get fired, or believing in the invisible, or coining the term “dungeon of doom,”
or scolding a reporter for slouching. (Those were four different Lions coaches, by the way.)In Sheppard’s case, he was Lionized during his weekly news conference Thursday, Oct. 8, when he bristled at the idea that there’s a perception the offense – one of the NFL’s best – has to carry his defense – the NFL’s worst in total yards, amid several other categories. Shocking,
right?
He started off calling outside talk and perceptions “poison.” Then he launched into one of the oldest and most tired tropes there is in sports: tough-talk posturing.
“We have a three-phase team here and I firmly believe that,” he said. “And I'm going to stand strong in that belief. And I think that's ultra disrespectful to my unit to say somebody has to carry us. We're going to do our one-third here. Hell or high water. Point blank, period.”
Sheppard has a huge blind spot: As a leader within the coaching hierarchy, and one I’m assuming has head-coaching aspirations, he can’t afford to cover his ears and block out the noise, as so many like to say. He needs to be fully aware of public criticism, because not being aware of it leads to these types of silly statements.
If Sheppard wants to talk about disrespect, he’s drawing on a weak hand – I’ll guarantee you thousands of fans feel disrespected by his defense’s poor play after shelling out hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to buy the tickets, merch, parking and food that go toward paying his salary.
Then it somehow got worse.
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Sheppard bristled again when he was asked what he could do schematically to make the blitz more effective.
“Those calls were the right calls,” he said flatly. “Those calls were the right calls, and I’ll leave it at that.”
Panthers quarterback Bryce Young shredded the blitz in the Lions’ road loss Sunday. He completed seven of eight attempts passes on 12 dropbacks against the blitz, according to Bleacher Report. When Sheppard was pressed about the disconnect between the calls and execution, he dug in his heels even more.
“Those are private conversations that we have that I'm going to keep in-house,” he said. “Those calls were the right calls.”
If those were the right calls, then the other option is that the players are to blame. Both he and coach Dan Campbell have spoken about defensive players not being in the right spot, sometimes because they were trying to help another player who might be out of position.
Sheppard has looked like a man who’s close to losing his job, and his tough-talk, say-nothing word salad Thursday only made him sound more like one.
Campbell admitted “we’ve got a little bit of a trust issue right now” and that players need to “simply be where you’re supposed to be” on his weekly radio appearance Tuesday on WXYT-FM (97.1).
The only real solution Campbell and Sheppard offered was benching some players or reducing their playing time.
“Because I do feel like we're right there at this wall right now and banging on this wall,” Sheppard said. “And I said there's going to be a group of men that bust this [expletive] down. And some guys probably going to be with us and some aren't.”
So one-quarter of the way into the season, Campbell and Sheppard are blaming players because they aren’t in the right position and don’t trust each other, yet there’s absolutely nothing wrong with Sheppard’s failed blitz calls. Oh, yeah, and stop disrespecting the defense!
Anywhere comments could be posted, Sheppard got rightfully cooked after his news conference, which might be his last. If the Lions lose to the awful Arizona Cardinals on Sunday in another shootout, Campbell might demote or fire Sheppard.
The Lions are on a bye during Week 6, and that typically has been an inflection point for Campbell; he has removed two previous offensive coordinators around that time. He demoted Anthony Lynn in Week 10 in 2021, right after the bye, but he let John Morton make some adjustments before demoting him two weeks after last year’s Week 8 bye.
Campbell seems to be moving more in the direction of accepting he needs to fire Sheppard. When he was asked Sunday about demoting Sheppard, he mostly dodged an answer; his response was more definite Tuesday on radio when he was asked if he has considered making a change.
“Yeah, I understand all that from afar when you look at it, when you look at the numbers,” he said. “But I believe in Kelvin Sheppard and I believe we’ve got a lot of meat on the bone with this defense right now.”
Even if the defense has untapped potential, the team itself is running out of time. The Lions’ schedule, the sixth-easiest before the season, gets harder after the bye. Maybe safety Brian Branch will return soon and provide a major boost.
But if Sheppard can’t turn things around quickly and help the Lions surge into the playoff picture, Campbell will be forced to fire him. With all due respect, of course.
Contact Carlos Monarrez at cmonarrez@freepress.com and follow him on X @cmonarrez.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Kelvin Sheppard defense falls short again – in standing up for Lions
