Allen Park — Part of any rebuild for a professional sports franchise is getting younger across the roster, but the Detroit Lions have taken that process to the extreme with their defensive backfield.
The team’s six cornerbacks have collectively appeared in 36 NFL games, led Amani Oruwariye, who has 25 under his belt entering his third season. There’s a little bit more experience at safety, where all four are at least eligible to rent a car, but none have started more than 19 games.
It’s not exactly the NFL equivalent of a day care, but position coach Aubrey Pleasant certainly has his work cut out for him. The Lions aren’t just young at defensive back for the sake of being young. They believe in this group’s potential, in part because they believe in Pleasant to draw it out of them.
“I’ve always said that AP is one of, if not the, best DB coaches that I’ve been around,” Lions general manager Brad Holmes said. “He’s extremely impressive in the way that he teaches it in a very digestible manner that allows players to learn quickly and learn fast. The energy he brings to that group, it correlates and resonates with the players. He just relates to players on the field and in the classroom.”
Just like the exceedingly young and inexperienced position group he’s tasked with developing, Pleasant is something of an anomaly on Detroit’s coaching staff. Remember, the majority of Detroit’s assistants had long NFL playing careers before shifting into coaching.
Head coach Dan Campbell played 10 seasons, while defensive and offensive coordinators Aaron Glenn and Anthony Lynn combine for more than 20 years of experience. Additionally, running backs and assistant head coach Duce Staley, quarterbacks coach Mark Brunell, wide receivers coach Antwaan Randle El, offensive line coach Hank Fraley and outside linebackers coach Kelvin Sheppard all played a minimum of eight seasons.
Not Pleasant. When he finished his college career at the University of Wisconsin, he fully believed he was done with the game of football. He had no interest in ever coaching the game, but his father, Garner Pleasant, saw something different.
Lessons learned
Aubrey Pleasant was born in Flint, where he grew up to be a star athlete, first at Flint Northern, before finishing up at Montrose, 20 miles northwest of the city.
Nearly two decades later, that decision to transfer halfway through his junior year remains a sensitive subject. Like so many of Flint natives, Pleasant wears the pride for his city on his sleeve, but he and his family recognized his best chance to pursue athletics beyond high school would require increased exposure.
“My father was a high school teacher and coach in the city,” Pleasant said. “For his son to leave and go somewhere else, outside the city, to finish his high school career, there were some questions that were asked.
“Part of the reason why is the football in the city had not been very successful,” he continued. “I was only JV my first year, but I did well and we only won one game. The next two years on varsity, I won a combined three or four games in two years. My dad was coaching basketball at the time and the future didn’t look very bright for the football team. So we looked for other potential opportunities that were close in the area, where I could take full advantage of the community and the atmosphere they were able to provide. Montrose was a community that I really enjoyed. Their football program and power-lifting program was one that was ahead of the curve.”
The bittersweet gamble paid off. As a powerlifter, Pleasant would set the state record for in his weight class for squats in 2004. And on the football field, playing both ways, he led the team in tackles and rushing yards. He went from having zero college offers heading into his senior year to several Division I schools, including most of the Big Ten, showing interest.
He ultimately decided to attend Wisconsin.
“I thought out of all the schools that offered me, beside Michigan, that was the best school for me academically and athletically,” Pleasant said. “I loved coach Barry Alvarez. I really liked the style of play that Wisconsin had. It reminded me a lot of our mentality that we had at Montrose. How they attacked, it was the run game, but also how they attacked the strength and conditioning. I just thought that was something that was a seamless fit.”
At Wisconsin, Pleasant was a good safety, not a great one. He earned three letters at the school, but struggled to hold on to his starting job. His best year came as a redshirt sophomore in 2007, when he recorded 47 tackles and two sacks in 13 games.
Pleasant’s college career would end on a sour note when he and teammate Shane Carter were suspended indefinitely ahead of the 2009 season by Badgers coach Bret Bielema. No reason was announced or reported and Pleasant declined to elaborate when interviewed for this story.
“The only thing I would say is we all learn from our experiences, both positive and negative, and hopefully they can help shape us as we move forward,” Pleasant said. “Any time something you love is taken away from you, you really have a greater appreciation for it. Then, when you get a chance to come back, it helps you with how much you want to influence other people, to help them be better people and better players.”
Whatever led to the suspension from the football team did not affect his status as a student at the university. He went on to earn a bachelor’s degree and was a year into a graduate program when he decided to return home to Flint and take a job as an educator.
“During that time, I really didn’t know what it was that I wanted to do,” Pleasant said. “The local superintendent knew that I was back home and asked my father if I’d be willing to step into the community, because I had a good degree in education, a solid educational background. So, yeah, I became a behavior specialist at Mott Adult High School, helping adult-aged learners obtain their GEDs. That was a great experience for me.
“It was a unique position,” Pleasant said. “There was a specific class that had adult-age learners that had some social issues, meaning they’d gotten into some trouble, had some issues with truancy. The school had had multiple teachers and substitute teachers that basically turned their backs on this class. They were having issues to find someone to stand in. Someone knew I was home, they knew my love for education and working with people, so I was asked to step in and fill that role.
“We were just working with the young men and ladies,” Pleasant said. “A lot of them had challenges, the reading level was a little bit low, the math levels were a little bit low, so we just worked every day to get better by the day. That ended up being a great experience for me as a teacher. It taught me a lot of valuable lessons as I move forward in my profession.”
Back in familiar territory
Teaching runs in the family. Pleasant’s father was an educator. Coaching runs in the family, too; he just didn’t know it yet.
Garner Pleasant always was coaching some sport, often multiple when Aubrey was growing up, through Garner’s retirement earlier this year. With Aubrey back in town after college, Garner regularly asked his son to join him, coaching football at the high school.
Aubrey was reluctant, content to go a different direction with his life after playing the game for so many years, but finally relented to his father’s pleas.
“I’ve always had a passion for helping people obtain their goals,” Pleasant said. “I just didn’t know that the venue was going to be football. My father always felt like I was a good communicator and a very good teacher. When I was back home, the teaching in the community, working in the community was filling a void, but there was another void that I felt that I didn’t know how to fill. My dad could see it in me and he basically said, he even begged and asked would I come out to coach? One day I finally did come out to coach and the rest is history.
“I really enjoy myself out there, seeing young men become better or have a little bit more confidence just with a couple things a coach can say,” Pleasant said. “That really brightened my day, really helped me out.”
He quickly realized football could provide a path to finish his graduate education. He got in touch with former connections at Notre Dame, Northwestern and Illinois, but the University of Michigan ended up the right mix of what he was looking for in an opportunity.
Pleasant had gotten to know former Michigan running back coach Fred Jackson during his recruiting visits up to Grand Blanc, where Pleasant was coaching the defensive backs. One thing led to another and Pleasant secured an offer to work as a graduate assistant with the Wolverines in 2011, and became an assistant defensive backs coach in 2012.
From there, Pleasant has rocketed up the coaching ranks. After two seasons at Michigan, he spent four seasons as a low-level assistant with the Washington Football Team. His first year with the franchise, Pleasant served as an offensive assistant, working on a staff that featured current NFL coaches Kyle Shanahan, Mount Pleasant’s Matt LaFleur and Sean McVay.
Pleasant believes that season was one of the most critical to his development.
“Not only being on offense, but being with the offensive line, the running backs,” Pleasant said. “With me being a former defensive back, I don’t think it would have been as beneficial if I was working with the receivers. …My responsibility was drawing up the run game. So for every week, as we got prepared for a scouting report, it was my responsibility to have the blocking combinations, sets, formations, every defense the opposing team was going to present.
“It really broke my football mind,” Pleasant said. “It split it in two and opened it up. It was one of the most difficult football years that I ever had. I often get congratulated by people that were on that staff with how I handled that season, just because I was a defensive guy that moved over to offense. But I thought it was going to be beneficial. I did not know how beneficial. I also didn’t realize how good of talent the coaches I was working with.”
When McVay was hired by the Rams in 2017, he gave Pleasant his first position coach job, handling the team’s cornerbacks.
‘A different cat’
In four seasons with the Rams, Pleasant’s reputation only continued to grow. Working with some of the best cornerbacks in the league — from Marcus Peters to Aqib Talib to Jalen Ramsey — along with developing young players such as Troy Hill, Pleasant played a role in a Rams defense that finished No. 1 in yards and points allowed last season.
In his first year with the Lions, his responsibilities grow further. He’s now in charge of the entire secondary, as well as serving as the team’s defensive pass-game coordinator.
Pleasant isn’t difficult to spot on the practice field. He’s often the loudest, most energetic assistant coach on any given day, regularly pleading for his players to match his energy. He self-deprecatingly labeled himself a maniac during a recent media session, something Oruwariye echoed while taking part in a panel presentation for the Detroit Economic Club last month.
“The guy is nuts,” Oruwariye said. “He’s a different cat. …He just brings a different type of energy to football. He loves this game.”
But the quiet moments are noticeable, too, when Pleasant pulls aside Oruwariye and former first-round draft pick Jeff Okudah for a detailed technique session while much of the roster works on special teams.
“Honestly, I feel like me and Coach Pleasant are kind of a match made in heaven,” Okudah said. “Me, my game is already based around technique, being a technician. That’s something that he’s brought to the table every single day. He’s someone that’s detailed-oriented. He understands that I’m going to ask a lot of questions, so he never really gets frustrated. He answers my questions and that’s been pretty big, having a coach that’s willing to embrace the kind of player I am and put his full belief and confidence into me being the player he envisions me being.”
That’s the patient teacher in Pleasant, the one that sought to make those high school kids fighting for their GEDs a little better each day, and the one reluctantly dragged into high school coaching by his father before quickly realizing the same principles applied.
Veteran defensive back Nickell Robey-Coleman, who currently holds a spot on the Lions practice squad and experienced the best three-year stretch of his career playing under Pleasant in Los Angeles, knows him better than anyone on the Lions’ roster.
“He’s more than just a coach,” Robey-Coleman said. “He knows how to teach. When I first met AP four years ago, five years ago, he was totally different than any other coach. He cared. He cared about his guys. He wants the best for his guys. He’s going to be a prick sometimes because he wants you to be great. He doesn’t want you to be mediocre and be OK with that. If he sees you slipping, he’s going to let you know. But at the same time, he’s a coach. He lets you be a player, but when he sees it fit to come in and teach something, he’s going to do that. That’s what makes him so special.”
On the rise
With the way things are trending, Detroit might end up another stepping stone for Pleasant. With his charisma and passion, having success here with a young group with low outside expectations would propel him into conversations for defensive coordinator vacancies sooner than later.
“He’s a stud,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said. “I try to go to all of our coaches’ meetings at some point or another to watch the practices after the practices, watch the film, or I’ll go in for installs and kind of get a feel of them with the players and get a feel of the players interacting with them. …He is as advertised, I would tell you that. He is a hell of a teacher. He is engaging, he’s thorough, he’s interactive, he’s energetic, he’s vibrant, he gets it.”
For what it’s worth, Pleasant isn’t trying to look ahead, beyond Detroit. Like most in his profession, he knows peering into the future takes your eyes off the present. And with the daunting task ahead, all his attention needs to be on the here and now.
But if things continue to work out the way they have to this point, he’d be lying if he said he doesn’t dream of being a head coach some day.
” I realized very early in my career, if you’re too worried about the future, you’re going to slip on that stone that’s directly in front of you,” Pleasant said. “A lot of times, that’s the obstacles in the opportunities we have.
“Fortunately, right now, I have a fantastic foundation with my family,” he continued. “It’s a great coaching staff, and the support system here that really allows me to focus on what’s most important and that’s the 2021 season for the Detroit Lions and trying to make sure this defense is something the fans can be proud of.”
jdrogers@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @Justin_Rogers