Editing Episode 622 (section)

=== Lions Defence ===

Jeremy described the defence as genuinely improved over the past two weeks, primarily due to better game-planning: vs. Arizona, the Lions bracketed Trey McBride and Michael Wilson and dared Arizona to beat them with anyone else, which worked for three quarters; vs. Green Bay, they used a cornerback rotation reportedly inspired by the Cowboys' scheme, which neutralised the Packers' receivers over the top.

The secondary crisis was extensive. Ifeatu Melifonwu was out, Vonte Maddox had been lost in Week 1 or 2, Thomas Harper was out indefinitely, and Christian Isian had been benched after several bad games. A sixth-round rookie corner, Keith Abney, had been moved to safety roughly three weeks prior after the Lions asked him if he'd ever played the position ("once, in high school"). Brian Branch's return provided a needed stabilising presence — he played both as a near-the-line-of-scrimmage defender and as a deep safety and had made the play on Jordan Love's interception the previous week.

On Kirby Joseph: Jeremy read out the tweet Kirby had posted upon returning to practice — involving battery emotes, storm emotes, tornado emotes, and a "husky with a pointing finger right at the camera" — and noted that Kirby had then apparently deleted his Twitter account again, as he had done several times before. Jeremy described Brian Branch as softer-spoken on the field but emotionally volatile off it; after punching JuJu Smith-Schuster the prior year, Branch had been "a mess" in the locker room and had needed to call his pastor to process it. Both hosts agreed that Kirby Joseph's social media presence suggested a somewhat different psychological profile.

On the linebackers: Jack Campbell and Derek Barnes had both allowed passer ratings above 110 in coverage per PFF's nearest-coverage-player metric. Jeremy noted that this may be partially by design — the Lions' linebackers took two steps toward the line of scrimmage on almost every play to defend the run, then had to scramble back into their zones — but allowed that it remained a real vulnerability. Devin White had been brought in, played one game, and the Lions had immediately identified why he had been unsigned into training camp; he was placed on the sideline and had since broken his forearm. Trevor Nooski, a long-time special teamer, had been getting more work at the third linebacker spot than anyone had anticipated and had been promising in zone coverage.

On the pass rush: Alim McNeill was the primary improvement driver relative to last season, having returned from injury and looked like himself again. Aidan Hutchinson remained the most disruptive player and commanded extra attention from every opponent. Tyler Williams had added a pass-rush element to his run-defence skillset. D.J. Wonnum was capable when left unblocked. Skylar Gale-Howard, a sixth-round rookie, had been a revelation early in the season but had quieted down over the past two weeks. Jeremy reiterated that the Lions had scaled back their blitz rate from early-season experiments — they had tried to be aggressive and disguise coverages, but realised their linebackers and secondary weren't good enough in coverage to support it, so reverted to fundamentals.

The Lions' blitz rate was approximately 32.3%, which Arif found startling after months of tracking the Vikings' historically high rate. Jeremy: "Not every team is insane."