The Detroit Lions got caught with their pants down in primetime again early this season in a 32-24 loss to the Carolina Panthers. It was a game that felt eerily as painful and disappointing as the Buffalo Bills game, last season’s losses to the Pittsburgh Steelers and Los Angeles Rams, or the Washington Commanders playoff loss. Heck, even the 37-23 gut-punch loss back in 2022, the last time the Lions traveled to Charlotte.
It was a rudderless track meet where the Lions almost helplessly had their
offensive game plan thrown out the window early as the defense got picked apart without any adjustments in sight, forcing Detroit to play from behind for the majority of the game. This happened with the Panthers missing emerging wide receiver Jalen Coker, among other receivers, and being down to their fifth offensive tackle mid-game and with a player at left guard making his first career start. It still didn’t matter, as Bryce Young and Tetairoa McMillan had some of the best games of their NFL careers.
With home-crowd “M-V-P” chants raining down on Bryce Young, it felt like the Lions had officially lost whatever mojo they had hoped to reclaim from successful seasons past after the forgettable, failed 2025 campaign.
Let’s check in on all of the faults in the Week 4 stock report.
Stock down: Dan Campbell, Head Coach
Another week and more sound bites about cleaning things up and fixing things, while the on-field results remain messy, are on the horizon. How the team prepares and evolves in-season is on Dan Campbell. For most of his tenure, Campbell had a fantastic feel for how a game might play out and the approach the Lions would need to compete and win. Recently, that hasn’t quite been the case.
Campbell is also stock down because it’s become abundantly clear he failed with his 2025 coordinator hires. He tried to play it safe, avoid disruption, maintain consistency, and remained loyal to a fault with the John Morton and Kelvin Sheppard hires. Playing it safe and not bringing in proven, veteran, competent play callers on either side of the ball—especially defensively, considering Campbell is more of an offensive-minded coach—has actually been the biggest risk of them all.
There were options available, including someone like Dennis Allen, who Campbell had worked for with the Saints and whose Bears defense led the NFL in turnovers last season and has allowed a combined 28 points to the Vikings, Eagles, and Jets over the last three weeks.
Campbell doubled down on Sheppard and the defensive staff this offseason, bringing in no fresh defensive voices or minds to a unit that faltered down the stretch last season. He kept the same crew together and expected different results.
Not only did Campbell struggle with those long-term miscalculations, but just like in Week 2 when Joe Brady had his number, Campbell was outcoached by Dave Canales in this Sunday night debacle while the team had penalty issues and game-management blunders.. Dan talks about stacking games but his team hasn’t been able to collectively do so for nearly an entire calendar year.
Stock down: Kelvin Sheppard, Defensive Coordinator
Sheppard is all too familiar with the stock-down section, and speaking of familiarities, hey, Dad, I can’t see too good—was that the national champion and Heisman Trophy winner version of Bryce Young out there or what?
Speaking collegiately, the Panthers offense truly trotted up and down the field like a 2010s Big 12 conference Air Raid attack. Pistol, RPOs, bubble screens, and receivers running wide open with ease. Panthers offensive coordinator Brad Idzik’s unit also dominated Sheppard’s crew with 12- and 13-personnel, under-center runs, on third and fourth down, and in the red zone en route to six straight scoring drives. Sheppard foolishly played to Carolina’s strengths with the amount of blitzes and single-high shell looks he called.
Sheppard’s defense got worse as last season went on, he didn’t capitalize on the offseason by making improvements entering this year, and as far as I can tell, has not gained anything beneficial from the Saints, Bills, and Jets tape. He also remains unable to adjust in-game.
The Lions defense is a punchline, and while the cupboard isn’t completely full, there are a lot of defensive coordinators around the league doing more with less. The defense has no identity, the players aren’t put in positions to succeed, and the unit craters against simple at-snap motion. The performance was more insulting with how many injured offensive players Carolina was missing. Just trying to evaluate the performance of the individual defensive players for this game is challenging just given how out of sorts the entire operation was on that side of the ball.
The Lions defense couldn’t get any worse by giving playcalling duties to Jim O’Neil or Kacy Rodgers.
Stock down: Christian Izien, S
It was a bit of a 180° for Izien after such a strong performance in his first start at safety against the Jets. He still made a handful of plays in his pseudo seventh-or-eighth-man-in-the-box linebacker role in run support and chased down Bryce Young on a scramble that was technically a sack early in the fourth quarter.
However, for much of the game, Izien and his mistakes perfectly epitomized the poor defensive performance. Izien played hesitant and uncertain and, much like his fellow back-seven teammates, looked ill-prepared for the Panthers’ offensive attack.
He struggled as a force player with outside containment, as evidenced by Chuba Hubbard’s first touchdown, and took poor pursuit angles coming from the third level, including on Hubbard’s 25-yard run to get near the goal line and his 30-yard cutback run. Izien was also flat-out run over on another out-of-control rep.
He struggled in coverage as well, beyond just the tough task of covering McMillan one-on-one on a Cover-0 blitz in the red zone, particularly by giving too much cushion in zone coverage.
After looking like a potential answer at safety against the Jets, Izien’s performance against Carolina instead highlighted many of the same issues plaguing the Lions defense as a whole.
Stock up: Alim McNeill, DT
The Raleigh native has probably been the team’s best player over the last two weeks and one of the few promising players defensively this season.
McNeill started his night off with a bang by bludgeoning left guard Corey Bullock into the backfield for what seemed like a critical third-down sack of Bryce Young. He equally took it to Bullock, center Luke Fortner, and right guard Robert Hunt throughout the night.
The Lions’ 2021 draft classmate of fellow captains Penei Sewell and Amon-Ra St. Brown also nearly got home on Young as a looper on the Panthers’ first fourth-down conversion. He had a handful of effective and aggressive bull rushes to muddy the pocket and was a half-step away from another sack in the third quarter on a play-action pass. McNeill also made waves as a penetrator in the run game, most notably on a 4-yard tackle for loss on Hubbard.
McNeill, along with much of his fellow defensive line, did their part, and it’s a shame the defensive orchestration around them led to such a devastating result.
Stock down: D.J. Reed, CB
The 5-foot-9 Reed has had his lunch money taken from him in three of four matchups this season against highly skilled, highly drafted wide receivers in the likes of Chris Olave, Garrett Wilson, and Tetairoa McMillan. It’s beginning to be fair to wonder if the Lions’ high-priced 2025 free-agent addition will ever be able to reprise his prime Seattle Seahawks and New York Jets form.
It’s apparent that Reed is ill-suited for the No. 1 cornerback role, and he struggled again in one-on-one man coverage on deep passes—a trend over the last month—with McMillan besting him on his first touchdown for 30-plus yards on the Panthers’ third drive. Unfortunately, it wasn’t just McMillan who got Reed, as he gave up a fourth-down conversion on a crosser to John Metchie III, a player on his third team in two seasons, and was also beaten over the middle by Grammy Award hopeful Darren Waller.
When Reed was at his best, he was an active, physical nuisance who could get his hands on the ball to force incompletions. That hasn’t been the case this year, with Reed coming up short in most tight-coverage, contested situations.
Quick Hits
STOCK UP:
- Sam LaPorta, TE: It can be challenging to fairly judge an offensive performance when a team is pressed into trail mode, but LaPorta was a valuable outlet in the fourth quarter who looked very much worthy of a hefty second contract.
- Christian Mahogany, LG: Mahogany had key blocks on the few decent Gibbs runs and, in 10 pass-blocking matchups with Derrick Brown, didn’t allow a single pressure. For the most part, the entire offensive line was winning its individual pass-protection matchups aside from a handful of issues handling blitzes.
- Aidan Hutchinson, DE: Hutchinson will still struggle at times at the point of attack and didn’t get home on Young, but he wrecked Rasheed Walker and both of the right tackles to force some of the few-and-far-between Young incompletions. He also had hell-bent hustle backside chase-downs of both AJ Dillon and Hubbard, plus an impressive swim move for a run stuff on the play that rookie Monroe Freeling was injured.
- Tyler Lacy, DE: While 30-plus snaps is a bit steep for Lacy, he was a force in the run defense, eating up multiple blockers and torpedoing a third-down run for a loss. He also generated a quarterback hit that was negated by a Roger McCreary defensive pass interference.
- Jake Bates, K: His best game of the season, going a perfect four-for-four, including the 54-yard boot.
STOCK DOWN
- Jahmyr Gibbs, RB: It’s not completely Gibbs’ fault that the run game was taken out of the script to some degree, but it’s surprising they didn’t have more success on the ground with their opportunities against a subpar Panthers run defense. Next Gen Stats had Gibbs with -27 rushing yards over expected, the worst mark for a single game in his career, indicating he left some meat on the bone as well. It was also his least productive game of the season as a receiving threat, and his third-down drop just outside the red zone on the Lions’ third drive to force a field goal was quite unfortunate.
- Brock Wright, TE: Two penalties too many for Brocktober Fest.
- Blake Miller, RT: Held his own for the most part against Jaelan Phillips aside from one pressure, allowed the bad pressure to Princely Umanmielen, and, along with Larry Borom, was beaten by Derrick Brown for a TFL on Gibbs. A small step back in performance from his first two games.
- Skyler Gill-Howard, DT: He wasn’t out there often in run defense, but on numerous Hubbard runs, the work-in-progress rookie was thrown in a taxi cab after happy hour and taken for a ride before he realized what was happening. If Tyleik Williams misses any time, he’ll likely see a few more run-defense snaps.
- Derrick Moore, Jimmy Rolder, and Keith Abney II — The Other 2026 NFL Draft Rookies: The trio combined for only 15 total defensive snaps, with Rolder not seeing any after the first two drives and Abney not seeing any since Week 1. The defense is looking this bad, but the three of them are still coming along slowly and unable to provide the unit with much juice aside from an impressive Rolder TFL on the game’s opening drive. There’s no real reason for concern yet, just hope that they can carve out their own individual roles and help improve the dejected defensive unit.
- Jack Campbell & Derrick Barnes, LB: Both had moments of being flat-footed and slow to react in coverage on run-pass options and continually struggled to hit proper depth in their zone drops. Young went 20-for-21 passing for 221 yards and one touchdown between the numbers, including a perfect 158.3 passer rating on seven intermediate passes (10-20 air yards) over the middle. Barnes also appeared to have a reduced role as the game wore on.
- Trevor Nowaske, LB: A regressive, less impactful performance after a playmaking performance against the Jets.
- Roger McCreary, CB: A defensive pass interference, a missed tackle, and a first down allowed in zone coverage to Metchie III—he hit for the cycle. McCreary did have one of the best plays by a defensive back with a diving PBU during Carolina’s first-half two-minute drill.
- Chuck Clark, S: They really need to find a way to get him playing closer to the line of scrimmage a majority of the time, or at least in more two-high coverages, as he’s just out of position playing the Kerby Joseph role.
- Brad Holmes, GM: I’m not of the belief that Holmes is the majority at fault for the defensive issues and still feel he is one of the best college and pro talent evaluators in the league. However, his decision to let Carlton Davis III walk for Reed over a few pennies continues to come into question, his penchant for not prioritizing length in the secondary is leading to issues, and his persistent trade-ups leading to lower-body-count draft classes do factor into some of the depth issues.
- DeShea Townsend, Jim O’Neil, and Shaun Dion Hamilton, Defensive Assistants: None of their respective players have improved upon last season or exceeded expectations. Too often, their players are put into conflict. Coverage-wise, no one appears comfortable in zone, there continue to be communication issues, and any man coverage leads to burnt toast.
- Clay Martin, Referee: One of the more inexcusably dumbfounding missed intentional grounding decisions.
STOCK NEUTRAL
- Jared Goff, QB: It’s never good when Goff has to attempt 50-plus passes, and he had a few mishaps in the fourth quarter from both an operational and precision standpoint, along with issues with batted balls. However, overall, Goff continues to be off to the best start of his Lions career and delivered a number of big-time throws, showed off his deep-passing prowess, ran the fast-break offense, and helped march the team into comeback contention.
- Jameson Williams, WR: His first 100-plus-yard game of the season, and he led the team with six receptions for first downs. However, the alligator-arms deep ball early and the tough high-point second-and-14 drop are black eyes on the performance while still leaving you striving for more consistency from him.
