Ex-Chargers HC Anthony Lynn planned on taking year off before joining Lions

The former head coach of the Chargers wanted to take some time away from football.

The Chargers decided to part ways with former head coach Anthony Lynn after the 2020 season.

Like most coaches after being let go of, Lynn had no intentions of remaining on the sidelines the following season.

However, Lynn’s mind quickly changed when Lions HC Dan Campbell offered him the offensive coordinator position.

“I was actually going to sit this year out, but when they called, I had to go because I wanted to be a part of that. I knew it was going to be special,” Lynn told Gilbert Manzano and Fernando Ramirez of the podcast, Compas on the Beat.

Back in 2005, when Lynn was a part of the Cowboys’ staff as their running backs coach, defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn and Campbell were players.

“I got to know those two very well. They handled themselves like coaches as players,” Lynn said about Glenn and Campbell.

And so because coach [Bill] Walsh kind of picked me out and sat me aside and talked to me about coaching and it worked, I try to do the same thing with current players.

I just helped plant that seed — when you’re done playing, that’s something I think you should do. And I did that with Dan and Aaron Glenn.”

Lynn spent the past four seasons as Los Angeles’ head coach, going 33-31 before he was fired.

He led L.A. to a 12-4 record and a playoff victory in 2018, but he was unable to carry that success, going 5-11 in 2019 and under .500 in 2020.

Why Lions EDGE Romeo Okwara is a great breakout candidate for 2021

Okwara’s 10 sacks in 2020 could be just the start of something much bigger for the EDGE

Romeo Okwara was one of the few defensive success stories for the 2020 Detroit Lions. In his third season in Detroit, Okwara managed to bag 10 sacks. That’s more than double his career total from his first four seasons and was done in a defensive scheme that gave the 25-year-old Okwara almost no help.

It was a remarkable performance for Okwara. And it might just be the beginning of bigger and better things to come for the Lions EDGE.

Per Next Gen Stats, Okwara notched the second-highest pressure rate on third downs at just under 24 percent. That’s a fantastic rate of creating pressure.

Now here’s where it gets really promising for Okwara, who is moving to a more defined stand-up OLB pass rush role in 2021.

Three of the top five players in the league in 2020 at generating pressure on third downs played for the New Orleans Saints. That’s critical because the new defensive coordinator for Okwara and the Lions is Aaron Glenn, who comes to Detroit from New Orleans.

 

Okwara projects to play the exact same role in Glenn’s scheme in Detroit that Trey Hendrickson played in New Orleans. Hendrickson exploded for 13.5 sacks in 2020, his first full season playing in that role after being more of a supporting player in his first three seasons.

Okwara actually scored a higher pass rush grade from Pro Football Focus than Hendrickson, 84.5 to 77.0, and registered 17 more QB pressures (42 to 25), albeit in over 200 more snaps.

The signs for an even bigger breakout campaign for Okwara are there. He needs to finish more of his pressures with sacks, and more of his tackles in general, to truly take the next step. But the age, the talent and now the scheme all line up for Okwara to build much higher upon his impressive 2020.

Breaking down the Lions new defensive front scheme and alignments

Breaking down the Lions new defensive front scheme and alignments

It’s official in Detroit. Two Lions coaches, including headman Dan Campbell, have declared the team’s intention to play a base 3-4 defense.

Except it’s not really a 3-4. No, it’s not the dreaded “multiple” scheme that the prior regime tried and miserably failed with, either.

The easiest way to explain the scheme is to change the designations for math purposes. There will be three down linemen, two outside linebackers and two off-ball, “inside” LBs. The two OLBs, which figure to primarily be former ends Trey Flowers and Romeo Okwara, will both almost exclusively rush the quarterback on passing downs. In that sense, it’s more of a 5-2 front with the two edge players standing up instead of having hands in the dirt.

It’s similar to the Green Bay Packers and how they use their OLBs as de facto linemen. Nobody would ever accuse either Preston Smith or Za’Darius Smith, and certainly not Rashan Gary, as actual linebackers in Green Bay. But they are listed at OLB and play standing up on the periphery of the 3-man line. Preston Smith does drop into coverage a fair amount, but that’s more the Packers taking advantage of his surprising ability to operate in coverage than it is by schematic desire.

The Lions new defense is based on the concept of bringing pressure from more angles. Dom Capers, one of the founding fathers of the zone blitz and the 5-man rush as a base concept, is now a senior defensive assistant with the Lions. Think back to Capers’ teams in Carolina in the late 1990s, his Texans teams of the early 2000s and his Packers defenses (as coordinator) featuring Clay Matthews III in Green Bay last decade.

A more recent example would be Capers’ influence in Jacksonville as the Jaguars’ senior defensive assistant in 2019. Built around Calais Campbell’s versatility and excellence as an end in an odd-man front, those Jaguars deployed Yannick Ngakoue and top-10 rookie Josh Allen as outside linebackers in the scheme.

While Ngakoue was labeled a DE, he almost never played in the role fans would expect as a 4-3 end. Per Pro Football Focus, less than 10 percent of Ngakoue’s 774 defensive snaps featured him aligned as what would be considered a true DE, hand-in-the-dirt spot. And at 6-2 and 246 pounds, it would be quite odd to consider Ngakoue a prototype DE.

That’s the new role for Flowers, who did play in that capacity some during his pre-Lions days in New England. Flowers is much heftier (6-2/265), which should be an asset in playing the run as a 5-2 EDGE. The same is true with Romeo Okwara (6-4/258) on the other side of the Lions formation. Jamie Collins and Julian Okwara can also play that role.

Capers moved onto Minnesota in 2020 and the Vikings learned the hard way that Ngakoue couldn’t play that 4-3 DE role in their misguided campaign last year. Ngakoue lasted six underwhelming games before being dealt to Baltimore. He wound up leading the Vikings in sacks anyway, with just five; the Lions finished with more team sacks in 2020 than the Vikings did, to paint a picture of just how bad things were in Minnesota.

Of course, Capers isn’t running the defense. Aaron Glenn is, and a look at the Saints teams where Glenn–and Campbell–came from shows a 5-man rush from the front was the norm. Per Football Outsiders, the Saints were a top-10 team in rushing both five and six defenders in 2019.

New Orleans often deployed three down linemen with two stand-up EDGE players who served in the role Flowers and Okwara will play. The athletic versatility (and greatness) of Cam Jordan to play multiple spots along the front contributed to the looks and the ability to switch fronts and looks, which appears to be the goal of the new-look Lions defense.

Trey Hendrickson was nominally a linebacker for the Saints, but his role in New Orleans was almost exclusively as a stand-up pass rusher; he dropped into coverage just seven times all season in 2020, per PFF. That’s the Okwara role in Detroit under Glenn.

So while the defense will be labeled as a 3-4 base, it’s much more accurate to call it a 5-2. That’s a better mental visualization of what to expect the Lions defense to look like in 2021.

Jeff Okudah healthy and grateful for a fresh coaching start

Okudah struggled through a groin injury and coaching confidence issues in his rookie season

Jeff Okudah’s rookie season in Detroit did not go the way anyone wanted. Despite being the No. 3 overall pick in the 2020 NFL draft, Okudah struggled as an instant starter at outside cornerback. A groin injury slowed the rookie from Ohio State, as did a coaching scheme and philosophy that just didn’t mesh with Okudah.

Now he’s healthy, invigorated by a new coaching staff and ready to prove in 2021 that the struggles of 2020 are a speck in the rearview mirror. Okudah revealed a lot in his first press conference since the season ended.

“It just feels like I have a different level that I wasn’t able to kind of tap into last year,” Okudah said of his recovery from groin surgery. “But I feel like this year just kind of moving around now and not having that pain in my groin anymore, it just feels like a different level so I’m excited to … get with (secondary coach Aubrey Pleasant), craft it up and see what it turns out to be.”

Okudah has some history with new Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn. Before arriving at Ohio State, Okudah played on a Glenn-coached team at an elite camp. The familiarity helps, but so does the change in coaching tone. That was evident in Okudah’s tone when talking about the new coaching staff.

“Just sitting down with them, within the first couple meetings I was picking up so much things that I thought to myself, like, it would have just been nice to have these tools in my toolbox going into my rookie year,” Okudah said. “I’m still grateful to have them going into the second year, and I think that it’s only been two or three months and we still have all this work to do. It just has me excited how much more there is to learn, and how much better there is to get leading up to the season.”

Okudah is being counted upon to live up to the considerable draft value in his second season. Being healthy and happy with the new coaching staff is an encouraging start in that direction.

Lions to sign Saints free agent LB Alex Anzalone

The Detroit Lions will sign New Orleans Saints free agent LB Alex Anzalone, reuniting him with former coaches Dan Campbell and Aaron Glenn.

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Another former Saints player is joining Dan Campbell in Detroit: NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo reports that the Lions will sign free agent linebacker Alex Anzalone to a one-year prove-it deal valued at $1.75 million, Anzalone will work with a familiar face in Aaron Glenn, who is Campbell’s defensive coordinator, as well as his new position coach Mark DeLeone.

A third-round pick out of Florida from the Saints’ historically great 2017 NFL draft, Anzalone’s history of shoulder injuries followed him into the pros and limited his availability throughout his tenure in New Orleans. Unfortunately, he didn’t play well in 2020 and forced the team to trade for Kwon Alexander an attempt at upgrading that roster spot.

Still, he produced 123 combined tackles (85 solo) in 38 regular season games with the Saints, along with 4 sacks and 8 quarterback hits, 3 forced fumbles, an interception, and 3 pass deflections. He’s capable of making some splash plays here and there.

Don’t expect the Saints to receive a compensatory draft pick in 2022 following Anzalone’s departure. His low salary won’t qualify for the NFL’s formula when allocating those comp picks, though it would cancel out a low-cost addition the Saints may choose to sign themselves, protecting their projected compensation for losing Sheldon Rankins and Trey Hendrickson.

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New Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn: Players will be more important than scheme

It’s a radically different approach from Matt Patricia’s defense

One of the biggest complaints about the Matt Patricia-era Detroit Lions, specifically on defense, was that the scheme mattered a lot more than the players. Patricia was a rigid believer in his “multiple” scheme and having players execute within the structure of the schematic design.

That approach took away from the aggressiveness and individuality of the players. Talented defenders (Darius Slay, Quandre Diggs, Damon Harrison) who sometimes did their own thing — often to the benefit of the defense — were sent packing. It led to a league-worst defensive unit that was barely a speed bump to opposing offenses in 2020 with the passive, reactive style of play Patricia favored.

New defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn made it clear in his first Lions press conference that things will be different in his defense. He’s an advocate for players over scheme and letting the talented players do what they do best.

“The No. 1 thing we’re going to do that we’re going to do as a staff, we’re going to make sure that it’s not scheme then players,” Glenn said last week. “It’s players and making sure we fit them to a scheme. And that’s our No. 1 goal, that you put the players in position to be successful.”

Glenn has roots in the same basic defensive scheme as Patricia, which leans heavily upon the Bill Parcells concepts from the 1980s and 1990s. Glenn played cornerback under Parcells with the New York Jets.

But Glenn has also played under Dom Capers, who is now on the Lions coaching staff as a senior assistant. Capers is all about the zone blitz and pressuring the quarterback, creating opportunities for takeaways. That’s more of what the defense was like in New Orleans, where Glenn has spent the last several seasons on the defensive staff. The base alignment might be the same, but the execution and fundamental principle of the defense is vastly divergent.

Glenn refused to commit to a base front this early, preferring to see what his players can do best instead.

“The good thing about the systems that I’ve been in, last year I was in 4-3 for five years. Before that, with Cleveland and the Jets, I was in 3-4,” Glenn said. “So I’m well versed on both of those systems. Again, that helps me as far as who do we have and we make sure we put those guys in positions. So again, I’ve been part of both systems, well versed on both systems, and I’m going to make sure we’ve got the players for them to fit exactly how we need them to play.”

Detroit Lions hire Dom Capers as senior defensive assistant

The Detroit Lions announced that they have hired 47-year coaching veteran Dom Capers as a senior defensive assistant.

The Detroit Lions announced that they have hired veteran coach Dom Capers as a senior defensive assistant.

“Capers enters his 47th season as a coach, including his 35th in the NFL,” the Lions said in a press release. “He joins the Lions staff after serving in the same position with the Jacksonville Jaguars (2019) and Minnesota Vikings (2020), respectively.”

Capers got his start as a defensive backs coach, entered the NFL in the mid-1980’s coaching secondaries, and in 1992 he got his first coordinator job with the Pittsburgh Steelers. He has been a defensive coordinator with four different organizations over his career, in Pittsburgh (1992-94), Jacksonville Jaguars (1999-2000) — where he was assistant coach of the year in 1999 –, Miami Dolphins (2006-07), and with the Green Bay Packers (2009-17).

Additionally, Capers was also head coach of the Carolina Panthers (1995-98) — he was AP coach of the year in 1996 — and Houston Texans (2002-05). He was the head coach for both teams during their inaugural seasons in the NFL.

Even more impressive, Capers also has coached four NFL Defensive Players of the Year including, Pat Swilling (Saints linebacker in 1991), Rod Woodson (Steelers corner in1993),  Jason Taylor (Dolphins defensive end in 2006), and Charles Woodson (Packers cornerback/safety in 2009).

Three offseasons ago, Capers turned down a defensive coordinator position with the Cincinnati Bengals and has settled into a senior defensive assistant role.

It’s unclear exactly what Capers’ specific role will be in Detroit, — the nature of the title lends itself to flexibility — but Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn played for him over three seasons while in Houston, and Capers will likely help guide the first-year coordinator in 2021.

Updating the new Detroit Lions coaching staff

The staff is loaded with former NFL players

A flurry of recent hirings has nearly completed the Detroit Lions coaching staff built around new head coach Dan Campbell.

With Friday’s official additions that includes QB coach Mark Brunell, the Lions staff is getting fleshed out. There has been a decided emphasis in hiring former NFL players across the staff.

As of Friday, January 29th, here is what the Lions coaching staff officially looks like:

Head coach – Dan Campbell

Offense

Offensive coordinator – Anthony Lynn

QB coach – Mark Brunell

RB coach – Duce Staley, who is also the assistant head coach

WR coach – Robert Prince*

TE coach – Ben Johnson*

OL coach – Hank Fraley*

Offensive assistant – Tanner Engstrand*

Defense

Defensive coordinator – Aaron Glenn

Passing game coordinator/DB coach – Aubrey Pleasant

Inside LB coach – Mark DeLeone

Defensive quality control – Stephen Thomas*

Special teams coordinator – Dave Fipp

Coaches with an asterisk (*) are carryovers from 2020

2021 NFL coaching changes: Detroit Lions

Detroit hired Dan Campbell to replace Matt Patricia. What does it mean for fantasy football?

There’s a great amount of real estate to cover with the Detroit Lions hiring a new head coach and coordinators for both sides of the ball. This offseason also will introduce massive changes at quarterback and wide receiver, in all likelihood.

Former Lions tight end Dan Campbell was hired away from the New Orleans Saints to replace Matt Patricia as the newest head coach of this long-standing franchise. Campbell brought former Saints defensive backs coach Aaron Glenn to the Motor City as the incoming defensive coordinator, and recently dismissed Los Angeles Chargers head coach Anthony Lynn will pilot the offense.

Campbell played in the NFL from 1999 until the 2009 season, operating mostly as a blocker. He laced up his cleats for the New York Giants (1999-2002), Dallas Cowboys (2003-05) and, as mentioned, Detroit (2006-08), appearing in only three games. Campbell signed with the Saints in ’09 but tore a knee ligament and missed the entire season.

As a coach, he entered the league’s intern program and was hired by the Miami Dolphins in 2011. The following year, Campbell was promoted to coach his former playing position. In 2015, he was named interim head coach after Joe Philbin was fired prior to the team’s fifth game. Campbell would win five of his 12 contests.

The next season, he’d be reunited in New Orleans with Sean Payton for the fourth time. Payton was his offensive coordinator in New York for a few seasons and also an assistant in Dallas. The injury-ruined 2009 season as a player found the pair together for the third time, and Payton has been Campbell’s boss since 2016 (assistant head coach/tight ends coach).

Coaching tendencies

Dan Campbell

We’ve already beaten the Payton connection to death, so there’s no need to go into great detail there. Campbell was fortunate enough to learn from one of the best coaching minds the game has seen, but we’ve also witnessed plenty of examples of that not working out for a first-time head coach (ahem, Patricia).

Philbin helped orchestrate the Green Bay Packers offense under Mike McCarthy from 2007-11 and again in 2018 — the year he’d replace McCarthy. While Philbin was not a great head coach in his own right, that’s not to say Campbell didn’t learn something from him in South Beach. The offensive designs were modified West Coast offenses, or the same base system Payton has polished to a brilliant luster with the Saints.

Despite being known for his no-nonsense approach, Campbell brings a player-friendly blend of leadership to the Lions. One of the chief issues with Patricia, aside from the lack of wins, was his inability to connect with players due to the implementation of a stringent, Bill Belichickian culture, minus the street cred. As a former NFL player for a decade, the blue-collar Campbell is said to know which buttons to press and when, as well as recognizing the appropriate time to be “one of the guys.”

We could deep dive that side of things until Lions actually win a game, but the point of its inclusion is that fantasy footballers shouldn’t have to worry about Campbell alienating his players or pushing them to the point of wanting out.

Expect a tough, disciplined approach from Campbell. Look for an offense that wants to be physical for a change, and count on his players being motivated to run through a brick wall for the guy.

Aaron Glenn

A former cornerback, Glenn has two coaching stops and as many job titles as a coach in his seven years on the sidelines. He was an assistant defensive backs coach for Cleveland from 2014-15 before joining the Saints as a full-fledged DBs coach until this season. He was a heck of a football player in his day, and the Saints have been one of the best secondaries in football under his leadership, but Detroit has major holes to fill.

Successful fantasy defenses almost always start and end with a pass rush. Detroit’s was second-to-last in 2020 (24 sacks) and only ninth from the bottom in 2019 (28). Merely one of the past five seasons has produced more than 35 sacks, and Detroit has managed exactly seven interceptions in three straight campaigns after generating 19 in 2017 alone.

The likelihood of Detroit turning around from being among the weakest fantasy defenses for years running to a consistently useful commodity is practically zero. The reasoning mainly comes down to a lack of personnel and also a first-time defensive coordinator in Glenn. Unless this unit drastically upgrades its personnel via free agency and the draft, it’s tough to even see them being a streaming unit more than a few times all season in 2021.

Anthony Lynn

Campbell will call the shots overall, but from a fantasy football perspective, Lynn is the more important character of this ensemble. Lynn entered the coaching world back in 2000 following his retirement as a player. He worked his way up the ranks mostly as a running backs coach, his former position. Lynn was the assistant head coach of the New York Jets under Rex Ryan and followed him to Buffalo. From 2009-13, while with the Jets, Lynn’s backfield generated an NFL-best 137 rushing yards per game.

In Buffalo, Lynn was named interim offensive coordinator after Greg Roman was fired in September of 2016. The Bills would finish second in rushing attempts, first in yardage, first in rushing touchdowns, first in yards per attempt and last in passing attempts. He would parlay that success into the head job with the Chargers from 2017 until his recent firing.

The Bolts didn’t resemble the rushing powerhouse Lynn oversaw in Buffalo for that partial season, nor did the play selection skew so heavily in favor of the ground game. Keep in mind, “balanced” in today’s NFL means a team is throwing it roughly two-thirds of the time, compared to the 50.93-49.07 percent run-first ratio in ’16. The highest percentage of rushing vs. passing plays in LA during his tenure was 43.8 percent in 2018.

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Now, we could get into myriad reasons why the Chargers passed so much more — and it’s not necessarily a bad thing that they did — but Lynn wasn’t the full-time playcaller during his four years. He had two legitimate offensive coordinators in Ken Whisenhunt and Shane Steichen. The Bolts shocked the league with the 2020 play of rookie quarterback phenom Justin Herbert, and the defense struggled in the past couple of years, primarily due to injuries. Nevertheless, Austin Ekeler was a top-five PPR back in 2019, and Melvin Gordon was No. 8 overall among RBs in 2018 while playing just 12 games. He was the fifth-best rusher the year before, so we have plenty of positives, even with the team not running with the same frequency.

Lynn’s success with running backs is remarkable. In four of the seasons with the Jets, his backs produced personal highs in rushing yardage. In New York, he was a frequent user of two-back sets. The resume of productive RBs under his tutelage is extensive. Jamal Lewis enjoyed a resurgence with the Cleveland Browns. Dallas RBs Marion Barber III and Julius Jones combined for more than 1,500 rushing yards in consecutive seasons. Jacksonville’s Fred Taylor’s personal-high 1,572 yards and two of the four best rushing yardage seasons in Jaguars history came while Lynn was guiding him.

No matter how good the system may be, it all comes down to having the right people to do the job on the field.

Personnel changes

Here’s were the rubber meets the road for Detroit. Quarterback Matthew Stafford will be traded away, barring some unexpected twist to the developing plot. The Lions’ top-three wideouts — Kenny Golladay, Marvin Jones and Danny Amendola — are set to become unrestricted free agents in March. Running back Adrian Peterson has been an effective role player, but he, too, is a free agent. Kicker Matt Prater also is available to sign elsewhere.

Make no mistake about it, this will be among the youngest teams, at least on offense, in the NFL in 2021. In all probability, the starting quarterback will be a rookie. The youngest of those impending free agents is the 28-year-old Golladay.

All of this change will, in theory, offer increased chances for young talents, like RB D’Andre Swift, wide receiver Quintez Cephus and tight end T.J. Hockenson.

The offensive line has a couple of blue-chip pieces to build around, but otherwise, the cupboard projects to be awfully barren in Motown.

Fantasy football takeaway

There’s hardly anything to say of substance without knowing the quarterback and his primary weapons. As for the few names mentioned above, Swift is the best bet to lead this offense from a fantasy perspective. The to-be second-year back is dynamic and explosive, offering help as a dual-threat weapon. Lynn loves himself some ground game, which helps Swift’s chances, so long as there’s room to roam. The Lions may give Kerryon Johnson a real shot at pairing with Swift, but another veteran addition, like Peterson, isn’t out of the question.

Next up in terms of helping gamers would be Hockenson, especially if he has a rookie quarterback throwing his way. Tight ends tend to be BFFs for inexperienced passers. Hockenson already mostly broke out in 2020, so there’s not going to be much in the way of draft value, unless gamers perceive a QB change as being a major blow to his outlook.

Cephus is an intriguing option as a late-round flier. He brings a 6-foot-1, 202-pound frame to the mix and has enough separation ability to get deep, despite not being a burner. He’s a classic example of a wideout who plays faster than he times.

Expect the Lions to look extremely different in 2020, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing after all of this time of substandard play. We’ll provide a comprehensive update as the roster begins to take shape over the coming months.

Projecting the Lions defensive scheme now that Aaron Glenn is officially the DC

Projecting the Detroit Lions defensive scheme not that they have officially announced Aaron Glenn as their next defensive coordinator.

The Detroit Lions have officially hired Aaron Glenn as their defensive coordinator and fans should feel excited by the hire as his background suggests a new style of defense in Detroit.

Like Lions coach Dan Campbell — who coached with Glenn in New Orleans the last five seasons — Glenn stems from the Bill Parcells coaching tree. He has extensive experience playing in 34 defensive schemes, but his time as a coach with the Saints was in a base 43 scheme.

With the Lions personnel leaning towards players with more 34 traits, it’s possible he leans on some of his past concepts to work with the players the Lions have on their current roster.

Where things get interesting, is when you examine the fact that the Lions almost hired former Los Angeles Chargers defensive line coach Griff Smith. Smith coached a hybrid front with the Chargers, using mainly a 34 Over scheme, which basically operates with 43 Under concepts.

In the clip below, Melvin Ingram (box highlighted) is the JACK LB, but notice how this front attacks the gaps:

Basically, if the Lions were after Smith because of his ability to develop players in this area, while also factoring in Glenn’s experiences and the Lions personnel, it’s possible the Lions will be looking to run a front that focuses on 1-gap penetration rather than 2-gap integrity (like the former staff).

In the secondary, Glenn will likely lean on his recent experience and that means reflecting on his time in New Orleans. They relied heavily on Cover-1 and 2-Man concepts — the most 2-man in the NFL per ESPN’s Matt Bowen — with some Cover-2, Cover-3, and Quarters zone concepts worked in as well.

Again, this lines up with the Lions personnel as well, as they were built for man coverage — the big difference this time is, they will have two safeties for help, rather than just one single high like in the previous scheme.

We’re still a long way from truly knowing exactly how this defense will shake out, but if you read the tea leaves, it sure looks like the Lions could be sticking with a 3-3-5, but adding a one-gapping approach upfront, as well as a 2-man coverage scheme in the secondary.