Back in 2022, then Detroit Lions linebackers coach Kelvin Sheppard was asked about utilizing his linebackers in a QB spy role. If you don\u2019t know, a QB spy is basically a defender who is asked to mirror to quarterback on a play in order to prevent them from scrambling for a big game.<\/p>\n
At the time, Sheppard made it loud and clear he wasn\u2019t a fan of the strategy.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou show me tape where the spy stuff works,\u201d Sheppard said. \u201cWhat you do is you waste a defender when you operate like that, and you\u2019re playing prevent defense in a sense. Show me where a spy has tackled Hurts, Lamar Jackson, Kyler Murray in open space. So, to each his own. Whatever you believe in, but I\u2019ve seen that get torched on the college level and the NFL level.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet on Monday night against the Baltimore Ravens, the Lions utilized a QB spy early and often. And, for the most part, it worked exactly as planned. The Lions were able to hold Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson to just 35 rushing yards on seven carries\u2014only 24 yards of which were on true scrambling plays. More importantly, the QB spy helped the Lions\u2019 defense sack Jackson seven times for 55 yards lost.<\/p>\n
So\u2026 what gives? Did Sheppard have a change of heart? Was he just covering for Aaron Glenn\u2019s defensive philosophy back in 2022? Do the Lions simply have better personnel now to deploy a QB spy?<\/p>\n
We discuss that topic\u2014and much more\u2014on this week\u2019s Midweek Mailbag podcast. The QB spy conversation begins around the 10:30 mark of the podcast embedded below.<\/p>\n
Other topics on this week\u2019s show:<\/p>\n
You can listen to the show below or on any of your favorite podcasting platforms. Simply search \u201cPride of Detroit.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back in 2022, then Detroit Lions linebackers coach Kelvin Sheppard was asked about utilizing his linebackers in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396262,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2071],"tags":[146,113,13195,4970,2506,7,147,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-396261","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-lions","8":"tag-detroit","9":"tag-detroit-lions","10":"tag-detroit-lions-mailbag","11":"tag-detroit-lions-podcasts","12":"tag-detroitlions","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-lions","15":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115265911671902996","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}