Kelvin Sheppard "started having the thoughts in 2023." So did Dan Campbell, who said he looked at his young linebackers coach a couple years ago and "just felt like, 'Man, this guy will be ready to be a coordinator sooner than later.'" To keep grooming him, Campbell and Aaron Glenn kept putting more on his plate.
"AG and I had talked about it and tried to give him more responsibility over the last two years, with that in mind for him, that this is the next step," Campbell said.
And when did Sheppard, 37, "feel like I was truly ready-ready" to run the Lions the defense himself? "I would say last year," he said.
Last year is when Glenn gave Sheppard "a heavy hand in first-, second-down game-planning ... and he made no mystery why he was doing it," Sheppard said. He also realized that he was thinking like a coordinator when he started sitting down at the end of each week, pulling up a recent game and calling it himself. He soon included his linebackers in the exercise, and Alex Anzalone told Sheppard after one session, "Man, that’s crazy. We just went over all that in the (defensive) meeting" with Glenn.
"And he’s like, 'That’s almost exactly what we went and did,'" Sheppard said.
That's not to say that Sheppard will call the same defense as Glenn. Or that he'll even look at it the same. As a former linebacker, Sheppard's vision will likely begin in the front seven and flow through the defensive line, whereas Glenn, as a former corner, tended to start in the secondary. Different vantage points will produce different looks.
"Multiple for offenses, but not multiple for us," Sheppard said. "Very easy for the players. And that means time on task. It's going to be a process to get to that point, but a defense where players don't have to think as much, but it makes the offense think. Simplicity. Got a guy? Man, try to get him frustrated.
"I really believe that when the huddle breaks, make the offense think -- not your players. And that takes time. It takes a staff -- which I have, a dynamic staff -- and everybody has a hand in this. But they know what I'm looking for. They know what I want."
One of the biggest advantages for Sheppard next season is that he'll have Aidan Hutchinson on the field. And, in time, Alim McNeill. The injuries last year were brutal, and losing their two best defensive linemen was ultimately too much for the Lions to overcome. Hutchinson "was one of the first people to reach out to me," said Sheppard, when the Lions named their new defensive coordinator.
"Just congratulating me, fired up, couldn't wait for the opportunity," Sheppard said. "It's humbling to hear guys like him, 'We want to do this for you.' I'm like, 'No, it's my job to do this for y'all.' Bringing guys like that into the organization makes my job easier, because those guys are willing to do whatever, even a superstar like Hutch."
Sheppard received a wave of support from the Lons' locker room when he got the job. And that "means the most to me, by far, because that's who goes out and does it," he said.
"We can have all these philosophies and narratives (as coaches), but it’s about them. And if I don’t have the belief from them, I don’t have anything," said Sheppard, who spent eight years in the NFL himself.
For Sheppard, the texts and shout-outs on social media from defensive players like Anzalone and Hutchinson were one thing. It was quite another to hear from "guys like Jared Goff."
"I didn’t even have his cell phone number," Sheppard said with a laugh. "He texts me, like, ‘Hey, this is J.G.' I was like, 'What up?' And just his outpouring of happiness for me, telling me he thought I deserved it, he was excited, and I told him how excited I was to have him as the quarterback on the other side.
"St. Brown, my guy Jamo, David Montgomery, Gibbs, when those guys see it from afar, it means a little different, because they don’t get that close-up interaction with me like the Hutches and the Anzos. Like, those guys know exactly what I’m about. But for the offensive guys, from far away, to notice your work and what you’re doing, that meant a lot to me to receive that stuff from those guys."
Despite all the attrition last season, Detroit's defense finished seventh in the NFL in scoring. That was a tribute to Glenn and his coaching staff for patching things together. It's also a testament to what the unit can do under Sheppard if it stays relatively healthy.
"We have a lot of players that’s been in this thing now a few years, and I owe it to them to keep as much of this as same as I can. But I also owe it to them to raise the standard," said Sheppard. "To me, we have standards in Detroit and we have standards in the way we’re going to play defense, and it’s never OK not to meet those standards.
"It’s going to be a way we’re going to do things this year. And it’s only going to be one way. Those guys are going to fully understand what it is from the start, and either you’re in or you’re not. And I think if everybody gets on board, it could be something special for those guys."