The Detroit Lions could not get out of their own way in an embarrassing 41-31 loss to christen the Buffalo Bills’ new Highmark Stadium.
Defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard is very direct with his players and staff when leading his defense. I think he would appreciate fair and respectful directness in return.
Dan Campbell did not mince words at half time.
The presnap penalties are infuriating for all head coaches.
But what is most infuriating
to me about Thursday night’s performance was that the Lions defense failed miserably in three distinct areas of the game that second-year defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard put an emphasis on fixing this off season.
- Explosive plays
- Run defense
- Third-and-long situations
Three commitments from Sheppard. Three failures against the Bills.
1. Explosive plays: “unacceptable”
The first commitment for correction this off season was to reduce the high number of explosive plays the defense gave up in 2025.
“It’s the first thing we started self-scout with, and there was overlap because you go to then doing a self-scout and we’re gonna watch it again,” Sheppard said. “And when the players come in Phase Two, Phase Three, guess what? I got 105 plays, and we gonna watch them again, and when we get to training camp and we need general reminders and subtle reminders of what to do in certain situations, we gonna watch them again.”
Well, explosive plays were an issue as the Bills generated eleven explosives to the Lions five. Below is a 25-yard pass in the first quarter that simply cannot happen.
It appears Sheppard calls a Cover 3 zone, but disguises with split safeties presnap. Thomas Harper, the safety at the top of the screen, sits on the snap and is responsible for the outside-1 wide receiver in-break. We can see this with cornerback Rock Ya-Sin points this communication at the break for Harper.
Credit to the Bills, they are in a good concept to attack Cover 3 with tight end Dalton Kincaid attacking the seam. One issue that makes this completion easier for quarterback Josh Allen is that the hook zone player in that seam is defensive end DJ Wonnum while linebacker Jack Campbell replaces with the rush. As a result, Wonnum cannot get enough depth in his drop to make that seam through a tighter window.
Now, we do not know Harper’s rules and keys for the play, or whether he should have subtle awareness that the scheme called for Wonnum to drop and play the seam tighter before breaking into his responsibility. But these subtleties may be the difference between having a young Thomas Harper compared to Brian Branch. In the meantime, these are problems the Lions need to clean up on the back end.
2. Run defense: “it starts there”
“We have to get back to playing elite run defense here because to me it starts there,” Sheppard said. “So, guys are going to go in and they’ve already been told we will get back to playing elite run defense here. And it starts with the front seven. It starts when the pads come on and it starts there.”
This is the area of the game that I was most disappointed in. The Lions run a stunt up front in one of their new looks implemented this offseason. A critical element of this is that while the stunts wipe blocks and change gaps for the offensive line, linebackers must fill and replace the gaps that are moved.
Here, we see a stunt left at the snap, with defensive end Aiden Hutchinson angling inside, leaving linebacker Jack Campbell to fill the gap behind him. Again, we don’t know Jack Campbell’s responsibility in this situation per se, but here he gets sealed by the tight end as cornerback D.J. Reed is tight to the line of scrimmage responsible for spill.
Should Jack Campbell have attacked the outside shoulder of the tight end to play the gap differently and force the spill? Or did nickel safety Christian Izien fail to play the inside shoulder of his blocker to force the spill?
These issues are unacceptable.
3. Third-and-long: “the fixes are simple”
Lastly, the Lions need to play better situational football. Blown coverages on third-and-long is the fastest way to lose to an MVP-caliber quarterback.
“We were outstanding on third down, but it was actually third-and-10 plus is like, why are we in the bottom tier in the league in that category?” Sheppard said. “Why aren’t we executing? And then you turn on the tape and it’s very eye-opening to what’s happening. It sounds easy, but it is. It’s simple solutions, man.”
Simple solutions. The breakdown here is somewhere between safety Avonte Maddox and nickel cornerback Roger McCreary.
With trips receivers to the field side, Maddox breaks on the wide receiver-3 when the route breaks inside. McCreary also sits as the wide reciever-2 in the trips set continues with the vertical route.
At the end of the game, three off season commitments to fix three glaring issues from the end of the 2025 season failed to take shape.
Is there hope for the Lions defense?
The solutions are simple.
