Scottie Montgomery praised Williams\u2019 ability to put Sunday\u2019s tough game behind him<\/a>. The first-year wide receiver coach noted Williams\u2019 year-to-year growth in his overall attitude after a bad outing. Morton took that one step further and said that despite some of the errors against the Browns, Williams rebounded well during the game.<\/p>\n\u201cLook at what he did after in the game. He continued to block his butt off during the game. We hit him on that one third-down play,\u201d Morton said. \u201cSo, he bounced back the next play, that\u2019s what I think. And then the way he practices, listen, there\u2019s no problem with Jamo.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amon-Ra St. Brown, the best Morton\u2019s ever seen<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve run out of ways to talk about St. Brown, who continues to chip away at Lions records one-by-one, despite this being only his fifth NFL season. Morton was asked if the two-time All Pro receiver is on track to be a Hall of Famer, and it\u2019s clear his answer was yes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt isn\u2019t even close,\u201d Morton said. \u201cI told St. Brown the other day, \u2018You\u2019re the best I\u2019ve ever been around. Run and pass. The way you prepare, the professionalism,\u2019 what he does in the offseason [\u2026] I told him, I said, \u2018I don\u2019t really care what the coverage is, you\u2019re going to get open.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Morton was quickly reminded that he once worked with Jerry Rice who was toward the end of his playing career with the Raiders. He made sure to clarify.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m talking about running, pass, everything,\u201d Morton said. \u201cI mean Jerry would block every once in a while, but I don\u2019t think Bill Walsh wanted him to block too much. He had other guys for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard<\/p>\n
More on defense\u2019s plate than ever<\/p>\n
During Sheppard\u2019s opening statement about last week\u2019s Browns games, he said something that caught my attention.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe volume that these (coaches) are able to teach weekly is really amazing. This is the most defense we\u2019ve played week to week since I\u2019ve been here, so I want to credit them,\u201d Sheppard said.<\/p>\n
From the naked eye, it certainly seems like Detroit is changing their defense more week to week. Whether it\u2019s using more zone one week, utilizing a QB spy, or finding subpackages for players like Trevor Nowaske and Tyler Lacy. So I followed up with Sheppard about this newfound flexibility.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe in putting players in position to make plays and not just being stuck in your ways,\u201d Sheppards said. \u201c(Not) \u2018These are my three, four defenses, we\u2019re going to do this,\u2019 and never adjusting. Because that\u2019s when you start to get attacked and schemed up and the players feel hopeless out there. And that\u2019s the worst thing, I know for me as a coach, for my players to ever feel hopeless. I want my players to know we always have answers for you.\u201d<\/p>\n
By being more flexible and showing the defensive players he can have answers for just about anything the offense throws at him, it\u2019s helped to build the confidence the defense is playing with at the moment.<\/p>\n
DJ Reader doesn\u2019t get enough attention<\/p>\n
Sheppard noted that Reader got a game ball for his efforts against the Browns. The Lions have been particularly stout in short-yardage situations this year. Per FTN Fantasy, teams are finding success on just 27% of power situations against the Lions defense, ranking first in the league. In fact, 30 of 32 teams are ceding a success rate of 50% or more. Sheppard believes Reader deserve much of that credit.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s not popping off the stat sheet and he doesn\u2019t have 13 tackles, three sacks, but it\u2019s all of the dirty work that people don\u2019t see,\u201d Sheppard said. \u201cThose guys, statistics wise, they show up when Jack Campbell gets 10 tackles every week because they can\u2019t come off of double teams. They show up when Tyleik (Williams) goes out on two huge critical plays two weeks ago and gets two PBUs. Man, them guys, I can\u2019t rave about them enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also praised Reader as a leader, even if he\u2019s not a captain.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is viewed as a leader on our defense. He doesn\u2019t talk much, so when he does, guys listen\u2014even me,\u201d Sheppard said.<\/p>\n
Alim McNeill is already back<\/p>\n
While it still feels unrealistic for McNeill to play this week against the Bengals after just one week of practice following his torn ACL in December, Sheppard insisted after one practice, McNeill is already looking like the dominant player he was.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s amazing when you watch those practice clips. It\u2019s like he\u2019s been at training camp, I mean, he does not look like a player that hasn\u2019t practiced,\u201d Sheppard said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s credit to him. I know all those bone density and all these guru terms they throw out, but all I know is I see a very, very high caliber defensive tackle when I turned on the tape yesterday. So, I\u2019m very excited to have him back out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Special teams coordinator Dave Fipp<\/p>\n
Note: Fipp spent a big portion of his media session talking about the kicking ball controversy started by Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio. We wrote about that separately here.<\/a> <\/p>\nThe future of kickoff types<\/p>\n
Fipp had some interesting comments about kickoff types. Through four weeks, we\u2019ve seen teams try just about everything: kick deep, kick short, line drive kicks, kicks away from a lone returner, etc. However, it\u2019s become a cat-and-mouse game, as the returning team has found ways to make specialized kicks less effective. Fipp pointed to the Ravens game, noting that Detroit pushed their returners further upfield to catch short kicks in the air and give them a return advantage.<\/p>\n
So where will things eventually land with teams? Fipp pointed out that if you can get the ball on the ground in the landing zone, that\u2019s the best option, but not every kicker can drive it low with accuracy. Instead, we may see kickers develop a ton of different options and utilize whichever one fits the current situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s putting a lot in the kicker\u2019s hands. I think the more that coaches learn about the play, the more the kickers are going to learn about the play and the more the ball\u2019s going to\u2014you\u2019re going to want the ball to move around based off of not only the returner but also the look that you have,\u201d Fipp said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was an informational and entertaining Thursday from Allen Park, as all three Detroit Lions coordinators held their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[4992,4993,349,99],"class_list":["post-198320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-detroit-lions-news","tag-detroit-lions-quotes","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}