Defensive Preview | Aaron Glenn has a lot to Prove in 2024

so before I get into this I have to say that Aaron Glenn has been interesting in his tenure with the Lions it's been a very interesting ride and any defensive coordinator that has been under as much scrutiny as Aaron Glenn has 2024 is seemingly an important year for Aaron Glenn Aaron Glenn has been through two which he's on his third um cornerbacks coach Aaron Glenn has also performed on the defensive side somewhat amazing and often terrible so I'm going to give an honest to look and take on Aaron Glenn I know this video is going to get a lot of flack it who knows how many views it gets but again I want to have an honest expose on Aaron Glenn okay an open and honest conversation about his defense about his skill set about the play he calls and we're not just going to get in the stats here we're going to get in the film of why he called this and what the hell is this guy doing again I'm not an arrogant Glenn truther naysayer none of that I do not mean to invoke any anger towards my subscriber base or the people that watch this video in fact I am utterly positive utterly positive that Aaron Glen will be better in 2024 so without further Ado let's get into it before I get into the film let's look at some data okay the Lions per game they allowed 23.2 yards per game they had 19th in yards per game okay okay they had a 91.5 rate 21st in the league uh of a pass rate and then they had 247 yards per game which is 27th they had 7.8 yards per play which is 31st and 20 12.3 yards per catch they had 41 sacks tied for 23rd and they had six in QB hits the biggest culprit of this was the pass rush and the secondary the secondary was bad overall bad so bad that you had to bring in four individuals Carlton Davis Ami Roberts and two draft picks rraw as well as terion Arnold you had to bring these guys in because your secondary was bad when your guys off the street like Kendallville door are playing better than 11 million men like cam Sutton that is a bad sign okay uh again I think the biggest Improvement was the run defense the run defense was Stout it was great and the Run defensive scheme changed especially when we started going 9 and8 uh onto our 12 and five season last year and when we started getting on that run uh from 9 and8 we changed our run Gap system we went from a two Gap system to a gap and a half system the cause for this change was that in a two Gap system you are giving up running lanes and overp pursuing this is personified by that one and six start so we had to get better on the run and Aaron Glenn sacrific pass rush ability sacks and all that to be more disciplined and play the gaps I think in 2025 for we're going to commit to press man coverage I do not know if we're going to keep the Gap in a half system but press man coverage is going to be sprinkled in there there was a considerable uptick in Zone coverages by the Lions considerably this can be personified in a Kansas City game where we played 8.5% in man coverage and the rest of the plays were in zone coverage and when we did go to man against the Packers we it didn't work we paid the price of playing man coverage we were not able to beat our 10one matchups Jerry Jacobs over the course of the Season had six TDS allowed cam suon was getting beat like a drum again we have to get this out the way so Aaron Glenn a a on run defense our run defense was only second in the league and we stopped the Run by playing a gap and being disciplined with our running LAN L the secondary was bad awful mirrored by a defensive line who couldn't get home marred by not injury but marred by players who couldn't play again Kirby Joseph was The Shining Light in this Brian Branch was The Shining Light in this and if yatu melaan Wu was another Shining Light that came at the end of the season the culprits of this bad secondary were cam Sutton was no longer on the team team Tracy Walker who's no longer on the team and Jerry Jacobs who you guessed it is no longer on the team despite the upgrades we still have an issue the defense was considerably bad in the Red Zone Red Zone stops were non-existent almost 177% of the time we stopped people in the red zone so we had progress by stopping the run and making teams one-dimensional we had progress um by moving to the Gap and a half system but we lacked pass rush and obviously when you lack pass rush and you lack turnovers and you lack Red Zone stops you're going to lose however we went 12-5 despite these issues other teams with this amount of talent would probably have a 9 and8 season but we went 12-5 was that the offense more more than likely it was the offense often people want to see uh a defense that is Interstellar built on greatness um people want to see the teams like the Ravens 2001 defense the 85 Bears defense people in Detroit want to see a defense that is completing shutout after shutout and being dominant overall we can say without a shadow of the doubt that the D defense even though they lacked turnovers even though they lacked sacks even though they lacked all this they still had one of the highest negative play rates in the league they had 97 negative play rates so with all this being said stats and statistics schemes understandings let's take a film steady look at Aaron Glenn I think it's OB and I think I've been objective up until the point of this video now if you hate Aaron Glenn you want to stay for the immediate hate video but if you love Aaron Glenn you want to go to this timestamp here so let's get into it let's figure it all out because honestly I have no dog in this fight I just want to entertain you like comment subscribe for more thought-provoking content like this and let's get let's get started with the film honestly this is a good play this is a good play but the coverage is weird the goofy zones that I've criticized all last season were evident on and on display here here on this play against the New Orleans Saints on a first and 10 uh inside their own 20 is a direct reasoning why you hate Aaron Glenn against quality teams quality quarterbacks and even Elite quarterbacks this would be exposed on all levels but this was a positive play for the Detroit Lions so let's break it down let's get into what the quarterback should have done and let's get into why this defense worked and what bailed out Aaron Glenn and bailing out Aaron Glenn is something you're going to see consistently here Aron Glenn is kind of notorious for his Zone coverages however he likes to put different things within him here cam Sutton is going to be matched up one onone what looks like a la however this is his own coverage play now this is typical to split the field down the middle and play man on one side and Zone on another however this Zone that looks like cover three might be a cover six but the man throws it off the reason why I say the man throws it off is because the rules of cover six are as follows cover two is going to be on the weak side of the screen and cover four is going to be on the strong side where the formation is the strongest um instead of playing the Deep middle Zone our safety is playing the hook curl we got a linebacker in man as well as a cornerback in man if this quarterback had an inkling of vision he would see that in the Deep Zone we have a guy wide open aive wide open completely and this is what I have a problem with we have so many weaknesses any zones that he mixes up or adds something to that's not necessary the cover six was probably the right call however Manning up on your corner and everything that's difficult okay when you look at the Justin herberts of the world when you look at the real quarterbacks of the world just man up don't add extra stuff to your zone so you can get beat deep for a big one of course this quarterback was trash and we uh benefited from him being trash so to better articulate Aaron Glenn's crazy zones again I might use something I've used in the past uh this play was used six times against our team Mullins threw for 400 yards on our team a backup quarterback third string through for 400 yards and even though this is a great play they've been running this all day long and as you know if you watch my Kirby Joseph video this was covered okay we were getting beat by this play every time and we can run through all six of them but for the sake of time this is just Kirby Joseph's Instinct again he's getting bailed out by players they ran this play all day they put the running back in motion all day eventually Kirby Joseph just got wind of where these guys were going and knew what to do in a cover three Zone he knew how to bait that quarterback in throwing this pick again Aaron Glenn was not making adjustments to this play they threw for 400 yards but his players once again bailed him out this is also the same man that that gave up 129 points in a 4-we span what are we talking about even though these are good plays but what if they weren't what if they weren't bailed out what if they weren't is there an example of how we got cute and got beat why yes there is in this play we have a nice fire Blitz with Alex anzalone and Mr Barnes here and we're going to drop our defensive end who hasn't proven that he can play his own and we're going to leave Kirby Joseph one-on-one with one of the bests to ever do it a potential Hall of Famer this is what I'm talking about we roam we see man coverage and then for some reason there is a check at the line because of the rules of the Zone dictate that Kirby Joseph take this guy this is ridiculous now I understand you had rules and principles in your zones and Kirby was just making sure everyone knew the rules but at the end of the day these rules go against Instinct and common sense if I'm Kirby Joseph I'm not lining up on 13 I'm not a cornerback I'm not agile and again every time your instincts over the rules is always going to get you a lose lose here's what I will say Aaron Glenn is better than what we've had in the past and he's done a lot with very little very little help from Brad Holmes in the past and very little help from his team we could not play Man coverage to save our lives I'mma throw in the Packers game the Baltimore game he learned very quickly in Baltimore that man was not going to do anything for you and he learned quickly in Baltimore that zone was going to give up more yardage than anything because people wanted to break the rules but the same reason we hate Aaron Glenn is literally the same reason we love Aaron Glenn because he's willing to break the rules he's willing to get creative and this can be personified in one play Aaron Glenn is not an innovator he's more of a remixer on this play from 2022 he remixes the Mike Zimmer double a gap pressure he remixes this in a way that shows his genius and also shows his daringness and his creativity what he does is he brings his safeties up and plays almost a cover zero style while dropping Kaminsky into somewhat of a hook to curl Zone again this is his creativity and his remix on a Mike zmer style play Mike zmer was famous in Minnesota as well as Cincinnati of bringing double a gap pressure showing two linebackers blitzing and then bailing out in this play the safeties do the same thing they show at the line that they're blitzing or coming close to the line and then they bail out now one why is this play daring because in 2022 Aaron roders was a Green Bay Packer and the majority of the game they were playing single high safety on Aaron roders that usually does not happen Okay the daringness is trusting your athletes to make a play get to their spot do their job that's the daringness and this is the same man that was voted in the NFL as one of the best coaches in the league especially by his team so he's beloved in that fact but I understand both sides I understand that people hate him for his halftime adjustments or lack thereof or they hate him because he doesn't evolve as quick enough or as strong enough as they would like or they hate the bin but don't break defense or they hate the quality of Defense they see on the field I understand but there was a lot to work with he did turn proverbial food pantry items into Thanksgiving meals he has done a lot to benefit the defense the team team as well as the organization and I feel as though he was kind of strapped for cash last year I mean he could not play man he was only good in zone and every game he played predominantly man he lost the game so these upgrades this 20 minute some video should personify why you don't like it him and what you're looking forward to I'm looking forward to them harping on turnovers for this season they've spoken a lot about just being an opportunistic defense Carlton Davis has spoke about it melon wo and all these other guys have spoken about being opportunistic in having turnovers he's preached it I'm looking forward to a red zone defense that can actually uh stop and stuff and get off the field I'm also looking for a third down defense that can get off the field consistently and not give up 45 points or 48 points at home so in all actuality this defense is still evolving it's still growing and especially with rookies in the secondary Brian Branch's move to uh safety it's going to be interesting to watch I don't anticipate him losing his job I don't anticipate him leaving the team I don't anticipate none of that stuff as long as Dan Campbell's the head coach I think he's going to be the de coordinator and I think he loves it like that I think the players love it like that so in this expose tell me what you think tell me what you know leave your comments below love y'all this Aver Giovani Spirit Detroit podcast family and keep his I lay down trying to figure out the rest close my eyes picture heavy and it's where I'm at get up [Music] yeah you can sit down [Music]