Silver & Blues Mailbag!

Information sourced from: Detroit Lions Morning Rounds

I’m excited to come back to a Silver & Blues mailbag for the offseason. I’ll likely be putting these out every few weeks to field any questions subscribers (or non subscribers) may have. If you have any other questions that you don’t see this time, please feel free to comment below and I will address them in the next mailbag. That all said, let’s dig in! The great thing about this week’s mailbag is, while it is two separate questions they are very much in the same vein.

Garrett C asks: “Compared to last year how improved is the depth across the board and specifically the LB core?”

So, overall I feel better about the depth of the whole team at a high level for one very specific reason: The Lions are trying to address their health problem. Jimmy Liao MD of Detroit Lions morning rounds has a great article that not only breaks down the lower relative age and health concerns of the Lions draft picks, but also recaps the lower average age and medical concern of the free agents, that article can be found here. The nutshell is the Lions got considerably younger and more dependable from a statistical standpoint. At the end of the day, none of this matters if nothing changes during the season. However, I think the Lions have taken a step in the right direction.

Now, zeroing in on the linebacker core, I feel they have done a very good job of building depth with additions like Jimmy Rolder and Damone Clark. A lot of folks have surmised that the Erick Hunter signing (UDFA LB out of Morgan State signed for 3 years) is more of a special teams pickup. However, I think this signals something bigger, which is a potential schematic change (I’ll get into that more in the next question).

The only real hole I see in the linebacker room is the Alex Anzalone role of a solid coverage linebacker. So either there is going to be a change in how personnel are used, or they are expecting Rolder or someone else to step into that role this year. Take a moment and think back to when Anzalone broke his arm and missed a considerable amount of time. It wasn’t pretty if you could make it past our defensive line.

You can find a full depth chart breakdown I did recently here. In a nutshell I ranked linebacker as a 1/5 need specifically because of the lack of a true coverage linebacker. If they had filled that role I would have them at a 0/5.

Sam Doornbos asks: “Is the defensive scheme going to change at all with new personnel or will it be the same as last year? And does anybody know the real health situation for Branch and Joseph?”

Lets tackle the defensive scheme first: This plays right into the earlier question. We could assume that the Lions are just planning to try to make Rolder work in coverage at the LB spot, or someone else like Jack Campbell. However, I think the linebacker room signals a potential change in personnel usage. We may see less three linebacker sets, and more use of a nickel corner who can tackle such as Roger McCreary or Keith Abney. Erick Hunter also would be a great player for this type of change as he has played linebacker, but is built more like a defensive back. We also could see safeties coming up to play the run more, however they are currently in short supply on this roster.

As far as the real health situation with Branch and Joseph, I don’t think anyone knows the full truth. What we do know is Kerby’s knee is likely going to require long term management which is never a great thing. Branch will be back, but not until mid way through the season. I rated safety as one of the Lions biggest standing needs in my recent article, and this is why. Branch probably won’t be fully himself until next year even when he hits the field. We can only hope that Kerby can play the whole season. Avante Maddox is a solid starter until Branch gets back but he’s not perfect. Izien and Hunter could help out here as well.

Knowing how the Lions are trying to get more healthy, but have left safety a pretty pressing need, makes me think they have something planned. We simply don’t know what yet.

Jimmy Liao MD also has an article on postseason injury updates which can be found here.