This was horrific. I have very little to say that is positive. I have some choice words that I’m not going to say here. This was ugly, the defense is somehow one of the worst I have ever seen in my life, and I know I have been Mr. optimistic in these recaps but I do not see how this defense gets better without a major change. I still like the defensive line and I have been vocal about my dislike for the secondary but somehow it continues to get worse.
The Panthers have a good offense, I mean no disrespect to them in this post. Congrats to them, they played well and deserved the victory. Bryce Young, Chuba Hubbard, and Tetairoa McMillan had great days. But to me it is clear that a lot of this was due to the level the Lions defense played at. 3 stops the entire game. The first drive of the game and I will give the defense credit for getting stops on the last two drives to give the offense a chance. We should have gotten a stop on a third and 14 but McMillan came down with a great catch to extend the drive. But on the second through seventh drives of the game for Carolina, the Lions defense had a whopping zero stops.
On paper this defense has solid players, I’ll say Aidan Hutchinson was fine and disruptive and Alim McNeill had a good game. Jimmy Rolder had a TFL early which was great to see for the rookie. But the secondary. Oh my god the secondary is so bad. Izien and Clark got their tackles but very rarely did I see a pass broken up. In fact I think we only had two pass breakups on Bryce Young’s 41 attempts. It is horrible. Rakestraw is young and I hope he develops but he isn’t starting caliber. Rock Ya-Sin isn’t particularly good this year when on the field but he left with an injury. McCreary has not covered very well, he has had some moments but overall not great. And I don’t even know where to begin with D.J. Reed. He was good on the Jets as a CB2 but now as a CB1 in Detroit, he continues to get picked on week after week and I wouldn’t even trust him to stop a traffic cone. I know this is just me reacting too much since the game is fresh in my head but I continue to watch good receivers set career highs every time they play us. It is horrible. This cannot go on much longer. We need change. I wanted us to trade for Joey Porter Jr. but I knew the price would be too much. I want us to try and trade for something because this secondary is ruining a solid team. We can’t ever get off the field because there is always someone open to help keep the opponent’s drives alive. I turned off the game on multiple occasions because watching this group made my blood boil. There needs to be change.
Jack Campbell has not been very good this year. He had a lot of tackles but he is not playing anywhere near the level he played last year. He needs to improve and I still believe he will. Derrick Barnes has had a solid start to the year but he was largely unnoticed today. And back to the safeties briefly: what do they even do? They get tackles but why don’t I ever see them doing anything helpful in coverage? I miss Brian Branch and Kerby Joseph. I was blessed to watch those two play every week and this defense is awful without them. We have no one who is able to get us a turnover like Kerby was and no one in this secondary has the skills Branch has. We desperately need at least one of them back and I think Branch will be ready to return after the bye.
I have excused the offense a lot in recent weeks but today was not their day. That last drive was awful and I hated the decisions on multiple first downs to throw it short of the sticks. We had a chance to win and the offense could not get it done. It was embarrassing. Settling for four field goals is not good enough either with how this defense was playing. We did a good job at driving down the field mostly but once it was shortened as we got deep into Carolina territory, we struggled to get things done and cap drives off with six. Additionally, the offense had many killer penalties that halted momentum and led to premature ends to drives. We need to play cleaner and overall need to better.
Today was horrible. I haven’t been on the train before but I think I’m now on the fire Kelvin Sheppard train. I like him as a person but with the individual players we have across most of our defense, we should be better than we are. Having Jack Campbell, Aidan Hutchinson, and our group of defensive tackles should not be the worst defense in the league. I know the secondary is injured and needs better players but we weren’t even this bad a few years ago when the personnel was much worse. We need to be better and I think it might be a coaching/scheme issue at this point. So I think we need to make a change and we need to make it soon. I cannot continue to willingly turn on the TV on Sundays and watch this defense ruin the season. We only have this group of guys under contract for a few more years and wasting this year with a defense this bad is unacceptable. We need to be better.
I’m not even going to do a standout players thing this week like I have the past few weeks. No one deserves it. Actually I’ll do one. Congrats Jake Bates on being my player of the game. He made both extra points and all four of his field goal attempts. Yay. Worst Lion of the game goes to Kelvin Sheppard. This defense sucks. We need to be better. Win next week at Arizona.