Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn presided over a unit that played about as poorly as a team could against the run in Detroit’s 37-23 loss in Carolina on Christmas Eve. Glenn didn’t shy away from stating the obvious in his weekly press briefing on Thursday.
“Obviously, not a good week for us defensively, and I’m talking about defensively overall,” Glenn said. “That’s in the run game and the pass game, but most noticeably in the run game and execution, technique, assignment, just a number of things involved in that situation, and we talked about them.”
Coach Glenn continued,
“We had a really good practice yesterday. We’re going to have a good practice today, and we’re going to move forward because that’s the one thing that we’ve been pretty good at is playing run defense dating back to the Giants game. So, this was very uncharacteristic of our players to have a game like this, and I don’t expect a game like this to ever happen again.”
The lack of in-game adjustments was something many fans and commentators found frustrating. Glenn pushed back against the need to make sweeping changes during the game. When asked if he had any regrets about how he handled the in-game decisions, Glenn had this to say,
“Not at all. Not at all. Obviously, as a coach, the first thing you look at is yourself, but when you’re just playing down-safety defense, when that’s been the talk the whole week as far as stopping the run because we know exactly who they are. As a coach, we’re always going to look at ourselves, and we’re always going to be in the fight with the players.
We’re never going to separate ourselves as far as, ‘Players, it’s on you, and coaches, we’re out of it.’ So, obviously, we have some issues with that as far as what we want to do, but man, the technique and execution and just assignment has got to be better.”
The Panthers ran for a team-record 320 yards, with RBs D’Oonta Foreman and Chuba Hubbard each setting career-highs in the process. The Lions get a very different type of challenge in Week 17 with QB Justin Fields and the Chicago Bears.
Fields ran for 147 yards and two touchdowns in the first matchup, a 31-30 Lions win back in Week 10. Glenn has his defense as ready as they can be for stopping Fields,
“He is the X-factor for that team, and it shows all over the tape. The number one thing that we’ve learned is how strong this player is, and we had him wrapped up a couple times in that game,” Glenn stated. “We missed a tackle on him, and listen, he’s an athletic player. He’s going to make some plays. I mean, that’s just the crux. He’s going to do that. The things that we have to do is be able to eliminate the big plays that he’s able to make.”
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