Allen Park — The Detroit Lions played more snaps in their base defense than any other team in the NFL last season. The Seattle Seahawks, whose defense spearheaded a Super Bowl victory, played the fewest snaps in their base defense of any team in the NFL last season.
Lions defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard wants to close that gap.
“We are planning to utilize the nickel position more,” Sheppard told reporters before an OTA practice this week.
The Lions have historically preferred to have three linebackers on the field defensively, part of the effort to be a run-stuffing team first and foremost.
Detroit played base defense on 62.6% of defensive snaps last season (according to Football Insights), leading the team with the second-highest frequency, the Las Vegas Raiders (56.8%), by a comfortable margin. The Seahawks, meanwhile, played base defense on just 6.4% of defensive snaps, instead leaning heavily on the nickel formation (five defensive backs) to limit opposing offenses.
In his quest to become more adaptable, Sheppard would like to catch up with league-wide trends.
So, while a large topic of conversation this offseason has been about which linebacker can replicate the coverage skills of Alex Anzalone, who joined the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in free agency, part of the answer might actually come from the secondary.
The Lions have given themselves a ton of options to fill the role following the departure of Amik Robertson, who primarily manned the slot cornerback position during his time in Detroit. The Lions signed Roger McCreary, Chuck Clark and Christian Izien in free agency, brought back Thomas Harper and Avonte Maddox, and drafted Keith Abney II this past year, among other options.
During Thursday’s OTA practice in Allen Park, McCreary repped at nickel cornerback with the first team, and Abney took snaps with the second team. Finding a nickel corner they can trust is not only important because it’ll go a long way toward fixing some of the pass-defense struggles the Lions have had, but also because their two great players over the top, Kerby Joseph and Brian Branch, have questionable injury statuses entering the summer.
“We have a lot of candidates that we have been kind of logging into that role,” Sheppard said. “We lost Amik. He was essentially our 100% nickel player last year. So, who is that going to be (this year)?
“It is a lot of question marks right now that we are starting to go through as we go. Like, you come last year, ‘Alex is guarding the tight end, Amik is going to be in the slot.’ We do not have that right now, which, in my opinion, is a good thing because this is an opportunity for growth, for us as a defense and a team, to get a little uncomfortable to go into training camp and not know who the starting safeties might be if we do not have the two All-Pros.”
Of course, simply putting extra defensive backs on the field more often is not a fix-all for the Lions’ defensive problems, although the Seahawks’ recipe is surely being copied to some degree in every NFL building this offseason. But the reason the Seahawks had so much success with their formula was the personnel: Defensive back Nick Emmanwori, a hulking rookie out of South Carolina, single-handedly changed the calculus of what the Seahawks could do defensively.
Back at the NFL Combine, Sheppard noted, “I keep hearing this Seattle nickel thing. Do you guys know who their nickel is? He’s 6-foot-3, 225 pounds. They’re pretty much playing 4-3 (base defense).”
Still, becoming more adaptable is an effort the Lions are making, and on defense, that starts with the nickel package.
“The adaptability rate that you have as a coach and a player in this league is vital,” Sheppard said.
nbianchi@detroitnews.com
@nolanbianchi
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Kelvin Sheppard says Lions want to play more nickel defense in 2026
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