Kelvin Sheppard: "We're banging on this wall. There's going to be a group of men that bust this MFer down"

The Lions aren't going to stray from their identity on defense, says Kelvin Sheppard. And that identity is "fast, violent, leaning on the front, disrupting the quarterback," said Sheppard. "Finishing on the football in a violent way, getting the ball off of them. You're going to hear me say the word violent. Violent. Violence overcomes a lot of things. Violence overcomes deficiencies. Violence overcomes mistakes, doing things urgently and violently."

If so, the Lions haven't been nearly, well, violent enough. Because most of their mistakes and deficiencies have been exposed. More likely is that the Lions are making too many mistakes with too many deficiencies for their violence to even matter and for their scheme to be executed properly on game days. That falls on the coach and the players together, but it's Sheppard's job to put his players in position to succeed.

So far, they've allowed the most yards, the most passing yards and the second most points in the NFL.

The front four for the Lions has actually played pretty well. The secondary has been a mess. The Lions have adopted a more zone-centric scheme in year two under Sheppard in an effort to keep more plays on front of them and create more takeaways in coverage. It was a nice idea in theory. In reality, they've allowed the most explosive plays in the NFL and have one takeaway in their last three games.

Miscommunications in zone coverage have been frequent and costly. Gaps between linebackers and safeties have been gaping. Asked Thursday if he might have misevaluated what his players can do well in building the defense, Sheppard said, "Absolutely not. I'm standing firm in my beliefs. I know my beliefs and so does this unit."

"That's also what you can't do," Sheppard said. "That's the comfort zone in adversity right there, is to start questioning, doubting, 'Oh, it’s got to be this if it's not working. Let's try something else.' Well, that didn't work. And then next week let's try something else. That doesn’t work. Let's try something else. And now you're just lost.

"No, we have a certain way we say we're going to play. Now, do you tweak things here and there, when you're seeing different concepts and they're attacking you differently? Yeah, that's football. But to just outright bring in a new playbook every week because the last one didn't go right, that leads to ultimate dysfunction and the dam completely breaking."

Of course, the dam might have already broke. The town below might already be submerged. And Sheppard's last lifeline might be dangled to him in Arizona, where the Lions are set to take on Jacoby Brissett and the Cardinals. If the defense doesn't take care of business Sunday, Sheppard might not make it to the other side of Detroit's Week 6 bye.

And Sheppard is the first to admit that everything else -- all the talk -- is "lip service."

"There has to be real evidence of change," he said. "Whether that's personnel driven, whether that's some things come out, whatever the case is, something has to change. Because coming out of training camp, this is far from where we thought we would be at and should be at. So, these things will get corrected.

"But within all that doom and gloom, it's easy to point at everybody. But also, within this, 'Let's go. Let's go.' Because I do feel like we're right there at this wall right now and banging on this wall. And I said, there's going to be a group of men that bust this MFer down. And some guys are probably going to be with us and some aren't. But the guys that are hard, that see the other side of this thing, I think we all are going to be proud of it, the fan base and everybody that represents the Detroit Lions brand."

So, what will it take to bust down that wall? Sheppard says it's as simple as making sure every player, on each call, is in the right spot. Or, as Dan Campbell has been saying, "Be where you're supposed to be, when you're supposed to be there."

"It sounds easy, but those are the things that bite you," said Sheppard.

To make sure they get it right, Sheppard says he's placing an even bigger emphasis on the details of each play in practice.

"It matters that your six-inch alignment is off," he said. "It matters because of the angle that you're creating, the disadvantage you're putting your brother next to you at because of that six-inch separation. And then when you start to see those (mistakes), it's a trickle effect ... And that's what we can't have right now. Just do your job one more time. Even if that's boring, even if that's backside of a play when you think 'I'm not at the point of attack,' and there's the ball rolling back on you. Just do your job one more time at a championship level.

"Everybody wants these big, huge results. But the big, huge results come in the process and in the little things, man. We’ve gotten the stops in critical moments. In multiple games when we needed to get the offense the ball, we went out and did it. But what about the other 40 minutes, guys? Why wait until the end of the game? We got to bow up getting off the bus and make sure we're doing our end as a one-third of this football team, to make sure we're coming away with the results that we want on gameday."

Will they bust the wall down?

Or will the dam keep breaking?

Sunday might be Sheppard's last chance to find out.