After every Detroit Lions game this season, someone on staff will select a song that incorporates the general feeling and vibes from the win or loss. By the end of the season, we will have a Spotify playlist that tells the full story of the 2026 Detroit Lions season.
In Week 4, the Lions fell to the Carolina Panthers in humiliating fashion.
Buckle up, we’re going to war.
Week 4 Detroit Lions Song of the Game: ‘War’ by Townload
So put up your dukes, we’re goin’ to war
Ready the nukes, it’s DEFCON 4
When the Lions’ defense kicked off the season, they were declaring
war on opposing offenses. Kelvin Sheppard’s initial vision of the defense was going HAM on quarterbacks. The defensive front was stunting, twisting, creating havoc. Detroit was sending aggressive blitzes and disguising their coverages. Unlike previous years, Detroit wanted to be assertive, unpredictable, and dictate the game on both sides of the ball.
So armed with a 43.0% blitz rate, the Lions hoped to bring a nuclear attack to Tyler Shough and the Saints offense, and for the first half, it worked. But then the holes in the defense started to appear. Shough and the Saints came blazing back, and some uneasiness started to seep in. Was the first half a mirage, or the second?
DEFCON 3
Assemble the troops, send in the corps
To hell with détente, all I want is war
We cranked up the panic meter after Josh Allen dismantled Sheppard’s defense from kickoff to handshakes. It shook us to our core, and it sent the Lions scrambling into their mini bye week. But also… it’s Josh Allen, wadda ya gonna do?
Dan Campbell promised to come out of the break with a new plan, some new soldiers, and a reinvigorated spirit. It was far too early in the season to declare defeat. You better watch out, New York Jets. The Lions are ready to put a hurting on your obviously inferior squadron.
You broke the rules of engagement and
Rebuilt your ranks without so much as a thanks
And now we’re at it hand-to-hand
But I don’t want to fight anymore DEFCON 2
The Lions came out of the mini-bye with a fairly reformed defense (reformed does not necessarily mean better). They put down their fancy weapons of overly complicated blitzes to help their missile defense, shuffled their servicemen, and just tried to attack the Jets with plain, sound, hand-to-hand defense. Again, it worked until it didn’t. If it weren’t for a late sneak attack from Sergeant Clark, we may have already reached DEFCON 1.
DEFCON 1
You’ve broken the sanctions that we swore
But I reap what I sow ’cause all I know
I reap what I sow ’cause all I know
I reap what I sow ’cause all I’ve known is war
Six months ago, Sheppard bragged of his offseason project. He spent all offseason watching the 2025 film and promised sweeping changes. Gone would be the explosive plays. The run defense would rise from the ashes of the Rams and Steelers games. He even watched tape from the best defenses to steal and incorporate their tactics.
But a month into the season, those promises have already been properly dashed. Detroit’s defense has given up the highest rate of explosive plays (9.2%), the second-highest rate of explosive run plays (15.5%), and the 12th-highest explosive pass rate (5.6%).
And I fell for it all. I liked what they did at safety and defensive line this offseason to improve those units. I was intrigued by the new things they were doing in training camp. I was encouraged by how well they performed in practice.
I should have known better. Ever since Ndamukong Suh chose Miami money over a hometown discount, this franchise has known nothing but pain and suffering on defense. For a dozen years, Detroit has been fighting a war just to climb to defensive mediocrity, and I fear it’s an endless one.
If you want to relive previous Lions seasons, you can find the playlists we curated below: 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022. And if you want to read previous versions of our Song of the Game columns, you can find those here.
