This was like the good old days, when the coach for the away team wore a headset for the home team, and the defense – yes, the defense – would find a way to make a play when it absolutely had to.
You remember those days, don’t you?
Aaron Glenn sure does, and, once upon a time, when he wore Honolulu Blue and silver, he would’ve been proud of the blitz Kelvin Sheppard called with less than a minute left
and the Detroit Lions hanging onto a seven-point lead.If the season wasn’t in the balance, it was close. Lose to the NY Jets and the Lions would head to Carolina with a 1-2 record and dreams of a postseason return fading.
The beleaguered defensive coordinator had to do something. His
defense was leaking, again, and Geno Smith and the Jets' offense was lighting up Ford Field.
So, on second-and-10 with 51 seconds left and New York at the Lions’ 28, Sheppard sent safety Chuck Clark up the middle gap. He got home, wrapped up Smith, and forced a fumble. Jack Campbell scooped it up. The Lions' offense trotted out and took a couple knees to end it for a 31-24 victory.
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The Lions escaped. That'll be the narrative, anyway, and it’s reasonable. Just keep in mind that one-score games are the currency of the NFL, and on any given Sunday, teams we think shouldn’t win do, or at least they take favored teams to the brink.
It happened again this Sunday.
What matters is whether a team holds on and then improves, and the Lions looked a little better in the spots they had to. Not by much, but it was there, at least early.
The secondary was better for a while ... maybe? Kinda. It looked like it. But then Smith remembered he was in Ford Field, and he enjoys Ford Field – he must.
He made things uncomfortable for the home team in the fourth quarter, salvaging two drives by picking on cornerback D.J. Reed, who was flagged twice near the end zone – once in the end zone – trying to cover Garrett Wilson on drives in the fourth quarter. Both penalties helped the Jets score touchdowns.
The first time, on third-and-17, Reed's mistake gave the Jets first-and-goal at the 4, turning what would’ve been a field goal attempt into a touchdown. The next one came on fourth down, with less than five minutes left in the game.
Technically, at least, the pass interference didn’t matter; Wilson caught the pass for a touchdown (so delcared after a replay review). But still ...
For a while, it didn’t look like it would get so tense. The Lions were making plays on offense and just enough on defense.
Give up a field goal, respond with a touchdown.
Midway through the third quarter, the Jets were at the Lions’ 10½ yard line, down 17-7.
On first down, Braelon Allen ran up the middle for four yards. A touchdown started to feel inevitable. Then an old pal showed up and mucked up the middle.
Alim McNeill played a massive role in the Lions' run to the NFC championship game run during the 2023 season, and then their 15-2 record the following season – at least until he tore his ACL against Buffalo in the 14th game of the season. He returned last season but didn’t have the same push and burst.
The first two games of this season, he looked a little more like himself. Against the Jets, the old McNeill was back, and on second down after the Allen 4-yarder, he tore up the middle and dropped Smith for a loss of eight.
On third down, he did it again, this time assisted by D.J. Wonnum, who came in from the outside. Still, it was McNeill wrecking the middle that caused the sack. The Jets lost 17 yards in two plays and had to kick a field goal.
He came close to getting Smith a few more times; if he can build on Sunday’s performance, the defense will have a chance to find its way to respectability.
As long as the offense keeps building, too.
And Jahmyr Gibbs keeps doing what he’s doing.
The Lions’ star running back took a pitch early in the third quarter, went right ... into a wall of defenders, cut back left, and ripped around the end 17 yards for a touchdown, Barry Sanders-like, which made sense, since Sanders was in the house, part of a celebration of the 1991 NFC championship game team.
Gibbs doesn’t cut or wiggle quite like Sanders. But then no one does, and the comparison, while natural, isn’t fair. But, boy, are there similarities, especially when Gibbs sees a crease, changes direction and accelerates.
When he bolts through a crease almost no one else saw, he’s the most electric back in the league. Sanders was once, too.
The Lions will take it: the show, the yardage, the improbable touchdown runs. They need all of it, and need the defense to keep being opportunistic, which is what they were when Glenn was running that side of the ball.
The former coordinator almost beat his former team Sunday, until that team channeled him and made the play to make sure he didn’t.
Contact Shawn Windsor: swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him @shawnwindsor.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Lions' gutsy blitz call brings back glory of defenses past
