On Christmas Eve, the Detroit Lions had an opportunity to move to 8-7 on the season, and even grab control of their own destiny, when they took on the Carolina Panthers. Unfortunately, things did not go at all as planned for Aaron Glenn and the Lions’ defense as the Panthers absolutely dominated to the tune of 570 total yards (320 rushing yards) and 37 points. On Thursday, Glenn made a concerning comment.
What did Aaron Glenn say about the Detroit Lions debacle vs. Panthers?
While speaking to the media on Thursday, Glenn was asked if he had any regrets in terms of the defensive scheme the Lions used against the Panthers.
His response was a bit concerning.
“Not at all. Not at all,” Glenn said. “Obviously, as a coach the first thing you look at is yourself. But when you’re just playing down-safety defense when that had been the talk the whole week as far as stopping the run, we know exactly who they are.”
Instead, Glenn insisted that the Lions’ inability to stop the run was about execution, technique, and assignment.
“Execution, technique, assignment,” Glenn said. “There’s a number of things involved with that situation, and we talked about them, had a really good practice yesterday, gonna have a good practice today and move forward.”
Nation, does it concern you at all that Glenn does not think the Lions’ defensive scheme was the problem during their loss to the Panthers?
Well, I’m not sure he is wrong. The secondary has been awful all season long. The praise we have seen heaped on rookie safety Joseph has been misplaced as besides the couple of interceptions he has been beaten often and misses tackles quite a bit as well. Okudah was great until he got sick and he ended up benched in the Panthers game. There were also atleast 13 missed tackles. It wasn’t just the defense not executing either. The offensive line was not opening holes in the run gamem and over the last few games I have noticed that their tight ends miss a whole lot of blocks in the run game which would explain why they keep running Swift, a shifty back who operates well in space, up the gut instead of the outside where he can make people miss. So yeah, I think execution could very well be the culprit, I mean its hard to blame it on the game plan when they were able to stop runners well in previous games