Neither Jarrad Davis nor Devon Kennard has played with Trey Flowers. No matter. They both have a good feel for what the prized free agent will bring to the Lions after watching him frequently last season on film.
That was part of Matt Patricia's plan to model his defense in Detroit after his defense in New England.
"We always watch Patriots games with our defense," Davis said told reporters on Tuesday, with the Lions starting their offseason conditioning program. A few minutes later, Kennard strolled to the podium and said the same thing.
And when Davis watched the Patriots biggest game of the year, their 13-3 victory over the Rams in the Super Bowl, he loved every second of it.
"It wasn’t boring at all," said Davis. "Everybody wants to see high scoring, everybody wants to see points flying up, but it was beautiful, how the Patriots did their thing. They went out there and they executed. They made sure they were doing exactly what they needed to do."
The more Davis watched, the more he saw what the Lions defense can become. Detroit contained the high-scoring Rams for much of their matchup last season in Week 13, before Los Angeles broke through in the fourth quarter to seal a 30-16 win.
"It was one of those in-the-trenches kind of games," Davis said. "You can’t give up too many running yards, and when they get ready to throw the ball you have to make sure that you’re on point and in the position you’re supposed to be in to stop these guys. The Patriots did an excellent job.
"Just watching that game and knowing, hey, we ran this defense, we ran that defense, it’s like, man, if we could have just executed a couple different times, we could have beat this team, too."
The Lions experienced early growing pains in Patricia's defense last season, before turning a corner in the second half. They held opponents to an average of 16.5 points and 300 yards over their final seven games, numbers that would have ranked first and fourth in the league, respectively, over the course of the full season.
That experience should see things come together more quickly in 2019.
"I think it allows us to progress faster, being able to see around corners and know what’s coming up and what’s expected for us to know each phase of this offseason program," Davis said. "I figure it allows us as players to kind of take ownership as well, knowing last year we were trying to install, trying to scramble and put a lot of things in that we really didn’t know about.
"We can take it into our own hands now."
Once again, Kennard echoed his fellow linebacker. But he cautioned the defense can't hang its hat on what it achieved at the end of the last season.
"If we think we finished the year strong, so we’re going to be good and we’re going to be strong because that’s how we finished, that’s a recipe for disaster. I kind of look of it as a complete clean slate," Kennard said. "The best advantage we have is our understanding of the defense and our ownership of the defense. It’s what we do with it now, moving forward."
For Davis, watching the playoffs wasn't easy. It certainly wasn't fun. It was a harsh reminder of how the Lions came up short.
But it was productive as a teaching tool, hammering home the kind of points Patricia often stresses to his team.
"At the end of the day, it comes down to those little mistakes, those little situations that come up," Davis said. "There’s a two-minute situation and a guy is offsides. (An offense) goes down the field and scores too fast. It’s things that we harp on, too, and you can see that. You hear them, but until you see them, how they affect other teams, or you get to see how they really affect you through our season, you don’t really expect them.
"Just being able to have that experience we had throughout last season, and being able to have that example throughout the playoffs, I think is going to help us grow and help us become better in those situations at difference points in the game."