There is a lot of pressure on the Detroit Lions to succeed in 2026, and a sizeable portion of the burden will fall on two coordinators with plenty to prove.
Drew Petzing enters his first season as the Lions’ offensive coordinator, replacing John Morton after a failed one-and-done campaign. Petzing is coming off a three-year stint with the Arizona Cardinals, but it was an overall unsuccessful stint—the Cardinals went a mere 15-36 with Petzing leading the offense. That being said, there was plenty wrong
with the Cardinals offense that was out of his control, from injuries and poor play plaguing Kyler Murray to having a roster among the worst in the NFL. Petzing appears to be a coordinator respected by multiple people around the league, and the optimism is that his offense will click when surrounded with higher-caliber players.
On the other side of the ball, Kelvin Sheppard returns to helm the defense for his second season. By Defense-adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA), the Lions defense was ninth-best in the NFL last season, but there were many instances of the team not passing the eye test. While Sheppard pitched a few gems against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Philadelphia Eagles, the defense also fell apart in pivotal losses to the Los Angeles Rams and Green Bay Packers. Even though the defense boasted All-Pro talents like Aidan Hutchinson and Jack Campbell, it seemed like miscommunications were a weekly occurrence. However, the defense was also historically injured last season—how much can a coach do to build cohesion when every position is bleeding players?
Both Petzing and Sheppard need to have successful seasons if the Lions are to make a serious playoff push. Of these two coordinators (sorry, special teams coordinator Dave Fipp), whom are you more confident in?
Today’s Question of the Day is:
Are you more confident in Drew Petzing or Kelvin Sheppard?
My answer: Sheppard.
I personally think that the Lions offense will be superior than the defense, but I have more confidence in Sheppard to maximize the talent on his side of the ball.
Petzing is unfortunately still an unknown commodity to me. We can review his scheme, we can discuss praise from other players and coaches, but at the end of the day, I just cannot outright say I’m confident in Petzing given his track record. I firmly believe that Petzing’s failure in Arizona was more about an appalling depth chart than his ability as a coach, but I do not know how good his coaching ability is either.
With Sheppard, many people will point to the final stretch of the season as a reason to doubt him, but you have to consider the circumstances. Their starting cornerbacks were in and out of the lineup all season. Their former All-Pro safety missed most of the season with a knee injury, while also losing their other star safety in Week 14. Their star defensive tackle was still recovering from an ACL tear the season before. The team had no consistent edge across from Hutchinson. All of these are factors that Sheppard had to deal with, not factors that he caused.
I feel confident that when he has his chess pieces to work with, Sheppard can scheme up a good game plan. The key word is when, as Kerby Joseph and Brian Branch still have unknown timelines to return, while the health and performance of D.J. Reed and Terrion Arnold have been rocky.
Because of the sheer talent on offense, I would be surprised to see the defense wind up as the superior unit—the offense had a boat anchor at offensive coordinator last season yet still succeeded. However, I think Sheppard is the more trusted coordinator at this stage, and I would bet on him getting the most of this defense.
