"It's been a tough week," said Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn, inside of a tough season. Glenn watched a good friend and a good coach lose his job Monday when the Lions fired defensive backs coach Aubrey Pleasant after another brutal performance by the worst defense -- and the worst secondary -- in the NFL in Detroit's loss to the Dolphins last week.
"We lost a damn good coach, a good friend of mine who I brought on to do a job, and that's unfortunate," Glenn said Thursday.
The decision was Dan Campbell's. Glenn said he supports it. That's his job, to stand behind the head coach. When Campbell came to him with the move on Monday, Glenn's response was simple: "I gotcha coach." Then they both turned the page. The NFL waits for no one.
"You move on this league and continue to strive for greatness," said Glenn. "You continue to strive for winning."
Detroit's defense is the biggest reason this team keeps losing, 1-6 entering Sunday's game against Aaron Rodgers and the Packers. Greatness lives on a different planet. Mere competence is a mirage. The secondary is the main culprit of a defense that's allowed the highest passer rating, the highest completion percentage and the most yards per pass in the NFL. And, of course, the most yards and points per game.
"We have to do something about this secondary as far as them moving forward," said Glenn.
Do they ever. Quarterbacks have a higher passer rating (108.5) against Detroit this season than Patrick Mahomes (106.2) has for his career. In other words, the Lions have turned Jalen Hurts, Carson Wentz, Kirk Cousins, Geno Smith, Bailey Zappe, Dak Prescott and Tua Tagovailoa into a better version of one of the greatest quarterbacks ever. The entire defense is to blame, from front to back. But the secondary has been its own kind of awful.
As a team, the Lions have the worst coverage grade (40.4) in the NFL, per Pro Football Focus. (This is somehow an improvement over last season's grade of 35.8.) Individually, they have three of the 10 worst cover corners in the NFL in
Mike Hughes, AJ Parker and Amani Oruwariye (min. 20 percent of def. snaps). Among the 119 qualifying corners, Oruwariye's overall defensive grade is dead last.
The Dolphins' game was its own kind of awful. The Lions concocted a plan to bottle up Tyreek Hill and Jalen Waddle and both receivers racked up over 100 yards. Tagovailoa had, literally, the game of his life with three touchdowns and a career-best 138.7 passer rating. He didn't have to make a single throw into tight coverage; each of his 36 passes arrived without a defender within one yard of the intended target, per Zebra Technology. It was pitch and catch on a Sunday afternoon.
Campbell expressed frustration afterward with the Lions' failure to fulfill the game plan, the secondary in particular. Glenn said Thursday they gave up touchdowns that simply "shouldn't be given up," pointing to Waddle's 30-yard score when he blew past Parker at the line of scrimmage and caught a floated pass with the nearest safety, JuJu Hughes, barely within shouting distance.
"We should have a safety over top and we should have a safety that's cutting (underneath) for Tyreek, so two guys should be taking those guys out. And it didn't happen, for whatever reason. We have to get those things cleaned up because the one thing that we can't do is give up easy touchdowns," said Glenn.
The solution remains to be seen. The Lions will give a bigger role on Sunday to Jerry Jacobs, which certainly can't hurt. Jacobs was arguably their best corner a year ago before he tore his ACL late in the season. And after the dismissal of Pleasant, Glenn said he'll lean harder on safeties coach Brian Duker and defensive quality control coach Addison Lynch "as far as planning for this game."
Talent upgrades will come in the offseason. Until then, the Lions need more improvement within and better communication on Sundays, particularly on the part of their safeties. Glenn said "the one thing that really hurt us" was losing co-captain Tracy Walker for the season to a torn Achilles in Week 3, stripping a young secondary of its leader.
"We are so young back there we've gotta just keep drilling, keep hammering," said Glenn. "Man, we cannot do things that make us lose games. You have to do that before you start winning games, and that's something I preached this morning to our guys."
Competence before greatness. It remains a puzzle for Glenn and this Lions defense.
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