The Detroit Lions are sick of going backward.
After finishing 27th or lower in yards allowed four of the last five seasons, the team hopes a revamped defensive front seven is enough to start turning the tide. With a relatively decent offense on paper heading into 2022, it feels as though the Lions’ season once again will live and die with the team’s ability to keep points off the board.
The Lions in 2021 were 2-6 in one-score games and 1-4 in games decided by three or fewer points. There’s a good deal of frustration in this stat, no doubt, but also opportunity: A pass breakup here, a timely sack there, and it’s possible even last year’s talent-barren defense is able to guide the Lions to five or six wins.
Of course, the NFL does not deal in hypotheticals. The Lions actually will need to find some of those wins one way or another and the defense marks their biggest chance at improvement, starting in the trenches.
“I would say our D-line has taken a huge step as far as understanding exactly how we want to play up front. You hear the new scheme and the new system that we’re doing, but it’s the system that we’ve been doing,” said defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn, who’s in his second year with the team.
Last season, the Lions’ defense blitzed 27.3% of dropbacks, a rate that ranked ninth across the league. Their pressure percentage (20.5%), however, ranked 29th. The Lions essentially were looking to make up for a lack of talent on the defensive line by bringing more pass rushers.
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But in sacrificing defenders in pass coverage for a rush that was largely unsuccessful, Detroit repeatedly hung a battered secondary out to dry. The result? A 7.2 net yards per attempt from opposing offenses, which tied with Baltimore for dead last in the league.
The difference, however, is the Ravens’ defense was effective stopping the run. They gave up 3.8 yards per rush, good for second in the league; the Lions finished tied for 18th with 4.4 yards per attempt.
In tandem, the Ravens defense was still meh, but when paired with a dynamic offense, “meh” was all it needed to go 8-9 — a record that is nothing to write home about for most franchises, but one of the best-case scenarios for Detroit heading into this year.
“If you can stop the run with a light block, that gives you more coverage flexibility,” Glenn said. “And that’s who we are anyway, and that’s why we spend so much time trying to make sure that we’re on point when it comes to stopping the run. … The guys understand that.”
Outside of a revamped scheme, one of the top quests for Detroit’s most recent offseason was to start chipping away at the biggest holes, personnel-wise. Still, outside of the draft, there wasn’t as much turnover from last year’s defense as one might have thought.
The Lions drafted Michigan standout and Heisman Trophy runner-up Aidan Hutchinson with the No. 2 pick and Kentucky’s Josh Paschal with pick No. 46 to go along with a pair of late-round picks at linebacker in Malcolm Rodriguez and James Houston.
Now, the Lions are waiting to see if a handful of minor tweaks to the roster — plus the influx at a premier position with the addition of Hutchinson — can result in a drastically different result when paired with a four-man front that’s getting off the ball quickly.
“You’ve got a 3-4 kind of feel to you, but it’s more attack than read, and freeing up the linebackers,” said veteran defensive lineman Michael Brockers, who said Detroit’s new defensive scheme reminds him of what he did in Los Angeles with the Rams. “So it’s more about everybody has a gap, hit your gap, win your gap, and let’s go play some ball.”
‘Who do you block?’
As far as the specific deployment of the Lions’ front-seven pieces, well, that’s a nut that waits to be cracked, and definitely something to keep an eye on as the season begins. Detroit’s defensive line showed itself in a variety of different packages, including ones where Hutchinson rushed from the interior next to Charles Harris.
Harris is one of the most important, if not the most important, returning player from last year’s defense. Without him, the Lions’ road to building a dominant defensive line is twice as long. Harris in 2021 had a career-high 7.5 sacks and was the only Lions defender to finish top-10 among his position group in pass-rush win rate: 29%, according to ESPN, which ranked sixth for all defensive ends/outside linebackers.
Really, Harris was playing on an attacking front before it was popular to do so in Detroit. He’s excited to find out what can happen when the rest of his defense is on the same page.
“If everybody up front is aggressive, the question is, who do you block? If everybody gets off the ball, there’s nobody playing back into their man, everybody gets off the ball, who are you going to block? Who are you going to slide to? A lot of guys who came into the room are all so versatile, and also very good at pass rush,” Harris said.
“So the question is gonna be every single week to the other team, who are you going to block? Who is the threat?”
That question can become even more imposing if: A.) Romeo Okwara returns to form after returning from an Achilles tear or brother Julian Okwara takes another step forward, and B.) if the Lions’ defensive interior is able to be effective. The opportunity is ripe for someone to make a name for himself in that spot, and a large part of the success for Detroit’s defensive front will hinge on the play of its defensive tackles.
Even more specifically, the door is wide-open for Alim McNeill, Levi Onwuzurike and Paschal — if the latter two can ever hit the field. Detroit took big swings at filling its defensive interior of the future during its last two drafts, taking Onwuzurike with pick No. 41 and McNeill No. 72 in 2021 before taking a shot on Paschal with a second-round pick in this past draft.
Onwuzurike (back) and Paschal (sports hernia) hardly have been seen on the practice field this summer. McNeill, meanwhile, has earned himself a starting job. He’s the obvious candidate on Detroit’s defense for a breakout year, especially considering the scheme change — which he said fits him perfectly.
“I feel like it fits me because with me being able to play on the edge (of center), it’s just more of an advantage. I’m able to use my speed and my power on the edge of guys. I only have to play half of a man instead of being head-up,” McNeill said.
Expect there to be some growing pains in the new scheme. In Week 1 of the preseason against the Falcons, Detroit’s all-out attack was successfully countered by quarterback rollouts that put the Lions back on their heels, and we’ll have a good idea as to how far they have to go in that area when dual-threat QB Jalen Hurts rolls in with the Philadelphia Eagles’ offense this Sunday.
If every returning member of the defensive line can perform at or near their level from last year, then the addition of Hutchinson and the opportunity for growth amongst younger players — including John Cominsky, Austin Bryant and Demetrius Taylor, all of whom stood out in camp — has the chance to create a legitimately useful line rotation this season.
Less is more
The Lions’ new-look defensive front means that at linebacker, less is more. Sure, they’ll look to that unit to help generate a pass rush, and Harris and Julian Okwara are both candidates to make a difference. But in shifting to a base defense that’s more in-line with present-day NFL standards, Detroit will often have less traditional linebackers on the field most downs — and yet, they’ll be asked to do more, especially in the run game.
Linebackers coach Kelvin Sheppard wants them to read, react and sell-out in that reaction, rather than play a “wait and pat your feet” style that veteran linebacker Alex Anzalone described last season. Throughout camp, Sheppard has emphasized the necessity for the linebacking crew to work in tandem with the defensive line.
“I know exactly what (defensive line coach Todd Wash is) looking for from his D-linemen, so in turn, if I’m able to translate that to linebacker play, if I know exactly what the guy in front of me is going to do. … I’m playing that much faster,” Sheppard said. “Because I know exactly, and I’m trusting — on top of knowing — I’m trusting he’s going to do his job.”
At linebacker, the personnel is reminiscent of the defensive line: Anzalone is the group’s leader, although much like Brockers there’s likely a question mark deep-down about whether he’ll still be here when the team is competitive. They also have veteran depth with the likes of Chris Board and Josh Woods.
There’s also a rookie looking to make a quick impact in Rodriguez, who may have done enough to earn himself a starting role heading into this season, and then a second-year player desperately looking to make a leap in Derrick Barnes, a fourth-round pick out of Purdue in 2021.
The Lions missed more tackles (132) than any other team in the league last year. While it’s probably necessary to pump the breaks on Rodriguez’s hype train, he brings to the table some things the Lions haven’t had in years, something the entire linebacking philosophy is predicated on: Pure tackling ability and the ability to key and diagnose run gaps.
“He’s a very tunnel-vision-type guy,” Sheppard said of Rodriguez. “He doesn’t care who he lines up against, he doesn’t care where you play him, what the call is, his objective for him is to beat the guy in front of me.”
Question marks in back
The Lions’ secondary is probably the group that could be pegged to have the most volatility, given the difficulty of their work depends on the success of two units ahead of them, and over half the starting defensive backfield is in some sort of new situation.
“I would say our secondary was one that … let’s just be honest, it was a lot of question marks back there, whether it was lack of experience, lack of play time,” general manager Brad Holmes said about the most intriguing position group heading into camp.
Safety DeShon Elliott and nickel corner Mike Hughes both joined the team in free agency on one-year deals. Third-year corner Jeff Okudah is looking to establish himself after spending last year sidelined with an Achilles injury. Cornerback Will Harris and safety Ifeatu Melifonwu swapped positions.
Cornerback Amani Oruwariye and safety Tracy Walker are the only returning multi-game starters from last season’s secondary. While the addition of new talent around them should figure to elevate play in the defensive backfield, there’s a chance Walker, who has been somewhat inconsistent on a year-to-year basis, takes a step back, and Oruwariye, who ranked third league-wide in interceptions (six) last season, regresses to the mean.
There’s also a chance, though, that Oruwariye continues an upward trajectory; that adding the veteran Elliott — who could be playing for a Lions contract beyond this season — makes the safety group whole; that Walker is the same player from a season ago (but with a knack for hanging onto an interception every once in a while); and that Okudah finally starts coming into his own.
In the end, a lot of it comes back to how effective the seven players are in front of them.
“It’s going to start with those guys up front,” Oruwariye said. “We know what they can do, how they can change the game. … I can tell they take pride in their responsibility this year. It’s huge, man.
“We’re going to need everybody on this defense to get it done.”
nbianchi@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @nolanbianchi