Dan Campbell said he's going to "look at everything" in regard to the Lions' NFL-worst defense, including potential changes to the coaching staff, but reaffirmed his "faith" in defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn after Detroit gave up 555 yards of offense in Sunday's 48-45 loss to the Seahawks.
"The answer is, we gotta clean things up there," Campbell said. "I’ll look at everything with AG. We’ll look at everything we need to, from the scheme to our personnel."
Through four games, the Lions have allowed the most yards and the most points in the NFL. On Sunday, they failed to even force the Seahawks to punt. They have the highest-scoring offense in the NFL and a record of 1-3 because their defense has been an unmitigated disaster.
"We’re going to look at it all, top to bottom. I know this, we lack confidence," Campbell said. "That’s very clear to see. That’s one element to it, we lack a lot of confidence. ... And then there again, we're still making errors, and that falls into our boat as coaches. That’s on us."
Asked specifically if he will consider staff changes, Campbell reiterated, "I'm going to look at everything."
When the Lions offense struggled in the first half of last season, Campbell assumed a bigger role in coaching and game-planning on that side of the ball after Detroit's Week 9 bye. He also took over play-calling from then-offensive coordinator Anthony Lynn. And the offense was much better because of it. Asked if he'll consider having a bigger hand in the defense moving forward, Campbell said, "I don’t know about that because there again, I got a lot of faith in Aaron Glenn and those assistants."
"More than anything, maybe it’s time for a deep dive, a real deep dive into it -- players, everything that we’re doing. But I also trust what he’s doing. There’s a reason why I hired him, so I want to let him do his job. But certainly I gotta look a lot deeper than I have," Campbell said.
The Lions were beaten in every way on Sunday. They allowed journeyman QB Geno Smith to complete 23 of 30 passes for 320 yards and two touchdowns. They allowed Rashaad Penny to rush for over 150 yards and two touchdowns -- for the second year in a row. They allowed the Seahawks to gain nearly nine yards per play. In their last two games against Detroit, the Seahawks have put up 99 points and 1,055 yards.
Last year's game was against Glenn's defense, too. That defense was supposed to be better this year, which wasn't saying much for a unit that gave up the second most points and fourth most yards in the NFL. It has somehow been worse. But Campbell won't point his finger at Glenn, the defensive coordinator he brought with him to Detroit after they coached together for five seasons with the Saints.
"Look, AG’s a damn good coach and this is the same thing I told the team: the worst thing we can do is start pointing fingers at each other and, 'Well, you did this, you didn’t do this,'" Campbell said. "We can’t do that, man. We can’t let anybody pull us apart, because as dismal as it is right now, we’re not as far away as it feels.
"But until we do something about and quit taking about it, it doesn’t matter. We can rah-rah ourselves and say we’re going to be better, but we gotta coach better and they gotta take it on their shoulders, man. They need some accountability. Our captains and our vets need to say, 'Enough’s enough.' Like, what are they going to do about it? And what are we going to do about it as well? We’re all in this same boat together and we gotta clean it up."
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