Film study: What Matt Patricia's Detroit Lions defense may look like

Dave Birkett | Detroit Free Press

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For four years, Devon Kennard watched the New England Patriots defense from afar, studying it trying to figure out what made it so great.

“I could never really understand what they were doing,” Kennard, the Detroit Lions’ biggest free-agent addition of the offseason, said Monday. “So actually learning it and stuff, it kind of triggers (memories). I go back and think about old film I used to watch like, ‘That makes sense what they were doing now that I know the defense a little bit more.’”

The Lions signed Kennard to start at one outside linebacker spot and contribute to a pass rush that will look quite a bit different than the one the team has fielded the past few decades.

Gone is the traditional four-man front that’s been a staple of Lions teams since the Silver Rush days, and in its place first-year head coach Matt Patricia has installed a defense that’s best described as multiple.

The Lions had five open practices this spring, including three minicamp practices last week, that gave reporters a first glimpse at what to expect this fall.

Given our vantage point a football field away from the action, it wasn’t easy to discern what the Lions were doing, other than they had a whole bunch of players crowded around the line of scrimmage most snaps.

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Kennard, without giving away the particulars, said he’s learned plenty about what he saw on film from those old New England teams.

“Just who’s coming and why they’re lined up certain places, and it seems like guys were moved around all over the place when you watch old New England film,” Kennard said. “You’re watching film and you’re like, ‘Why is he here? Why is he there?’ And there’s a system of it and starting to understand that and it’s like, ‘Oh, OK. Now I get it.’”

To help better understand what the Lions defense will look like this fall, I went back and watched all 43 sacks Patricia’s defense with the Patriots had in the regular season last year (including one against the Buffalo Bills that was negated by a penalty away from the play).

The Patriots tied for seventh in the NFL in sacks (with 42, officially) despite fielding a defensive front seven that probably would rank in the middle to bottom half of the NFL in talent.

They don’t have a dominant pass rusher – no Patriot had more than 6.5 sacks last year; the Tennessee Titans and Chicago Bears were the only other teams in the top 10 in sacks that did not have an individual player in double-digits – and their best linebacker, Dont’a Hightower, missed the final 11 games plus the playoffs with injury.

So how did they manage to have so much success on defense? Here’s what I learned, and how it might apply to the Lions this fall:

• First, let’s acknowledge that it helps a pass rush to play from ahead, which the Patriots did often while going 13-3 last year. Of the Patriots’ 43 unofficial sacks, I would categorize 19 of them as coming in pass-desperate situations (when an opponent is down more than eight points in the second half of a game, or trailing on the final possession). The Lions, for comparison sake, finished 20th in the NFL with 35 sacks last year, and eight came in pass-desperate situations.

• Regardless of situation, the Patriots had a couple of clear preferences when it came to plays that produced sacks. First, while Kennard is right that “guys were moved around all over the place” in New England’s defense, Patricia typically relied on a four-man pass rush on plays that got home to the quarterback.

Of the 43 sacks last year, 28 came from four-man rushes and four came with just three defenders crashing the line. Patricia dialed up the occasional blitz, with defensive backs Malcolm Butler, Jonathan Jones and Devin McCourty each recording one sack on the season, but the Patriots had just three sacks when they rushed six players (including those by Butler and McCourty).

• People have often asked what the Lions’ base defense will be under Patricia, and the real answer is something with five or more defensive backs on the field. Realizing, again, that sacks typically come in passing situations, it still struck me that 30 of the Patriots’ 43 sacks last year came with six or seven defensive backs on the field.

That’s an astounding number, and speaks both to confusion the Patriots were able to cause on defense last year, and their ability to cover (and disrupt receivers) in order to let their pass rush get home.

Breaking down the Patriots’ most sack-friendly packages even more: 17 sacks came in a “quarter” package with seven defensive backs on the field, 13 came in “dime” coverage with six defensive backs, nine came in “nickel,” and just four came out an assortment of base fronts. The Patriots generated two sacks with a typical 4-3 alignment, one in a 3-4 look and one with a 5-2 alignment (though that was a product of Ben Roethlisberger dropping a snap on what appeared to be run-pass option play when he tried to make a pass too quickly).

• The Lions have a deep secondary with cornerbacks Darius Slay, Nevin Lawson, Teez Tabor, Jamal Agnew and DeShawn Shead, plus safeties Glover Quin, Quandre Diggs, Tavon Wilson, Tracy Walker and Miles Killebrew potentially in line for playing time.

As Patriots defensive coordinator, Patricia often lined a defensive back or two up in the middle of the field in what typically would be a linebacker position. Safeties Patrick Chung (5-foot-11, 215 pounds) and Jordan Richards (5-11, 210 pounds) were most notable in that role for New England, and I could see Wilson (6-0, 212 pounds) occupying that spot for the Lions this fall.

• While Patricia overloaded his secondary as Patriots defensive coordinator, he almost always lined up four (19 times) or five (21 times) defenders at the line of scrimmage (he had six defenders along the line on the other three sacks). Almost always, though, just three of those defenders were in a defensive lineman’s posture with a hand in the dirt. The other rusher(s), usually a linebacker or two, played from a stand-up position, and one of the five players along the line dropped into coverage or had quarterback/running back spot duties.

That's where some of the confusion comes in, identifying who's rushing and who's dropping, and that jives with a lot of what we saw during minicamp. This fall I certainly expect Kennard to play as a stand-up linebacker at the line of scrimmage on passing downs and fellow linebackers Jarrad Davis and Christian Jones – the Patriots sometimes ran their nickel defense out a 3-3 set, with three linebackers and three defensive linemen on the field – to see time as rushers as well.

n If you’re looking for player comps for the Lions this fall, just in terms of how they’ll be deployed under Patricia, Ziggy Ansah, if he’s healthy, could very easily have a Trey Flowers role where he rushes as an end with his hand in the dirt from a seven- or nine-technique, wide of the offensive tackle. That’s where Ansah is most comfortable, and that’s where the Lions have indicated to people close to Ansah that he’ll play.

Kennard projects to play a Kyle Van Noy- or Marquis Flowers-type role, as a stand-up linebacker at the line of scrimmage in passing situations – Van Noy was second on the team with 5.5 sacks in 13 games last year. And the Lions will rotate their other defensive linemen, with A’Shawn Robinson capable of playing inside or outside depending on the situation, Sylvester Williams perhaps filling a Malcom Brown-like interior role, and Anthony Zettel and Kerry Hyder adding depth on the outside.

• Finally, as multiple as the Lions defense will be under Patricia, they'll still get their sacks from the traditional spots on the field, if last year's New England defense is any indication.

Of the Patriots' 43 sacks, 13.5 came from rushers at the left or right defensive end spots, nine came from what would amount to traditional 3-4 outside linebacker spots, and 12 came from players lined up in an inside linebacker position, on or off the ball.

Patricia downplayed the need for traditional edge rushers back in March, and the Lions are counting on his coaching acumen to make their new scheme hum this fall.

"There’s different types of pass rush," Patricia said at the NFL's annual meeting. "There’s edge pass rush, inside pass rush. There’s schemed-up pass rush. There’s certainly, it’s more than just the defensive line. There’s guys that can come off the edge, whether it’s secondary players, linebackers through the middle, whatever the case may be. I think we have a wide variety of ways to be able to hopefully generate pass rush and we’ll find out when we get out there."

Contact Dave Birkett: dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett. Download our Lions Xtra app for free on Apple and Android!



