It’s time to stop the argument about whether the Lions play a 4-3 or a 3-4 defense. The correct answer is neither.
Detroit played a whopping 84 percent of its defensive snaps in either nickel or dime formations in Matt Patricia’s first year at the helm. Using five or six defensive backs is the new normal across the NFL, but especially with the Lions.
Without the breakdown of linemen/LBs and just counting the players in the secondary, the Lions were in nickel 58 percent of the time and dime on 26 percent of opposing snaps, according to Football Outsiders analysis. The NFL averages were 60 and 13 percent, respectively. Detroit’s heavy utilization of the dime package (6 DBs) ranked seventh across the league.
The Lions ranked 30th in usage of the base defense. Football Outsiders lumps 4-3 and 3-4 fronts together as base; essentially it means having a front seven combination of linemen and linebackers instead of playing five or more DBs. Coordinator Paul Pasqualoni and coach Patricia dialed up the base defense just 15 percent of the time in their first season in Detroit. Only the Patriots and Cardinals used a traditional seven-man front less frequently.
Expect the trend to continue into 2019. Nearly all the practice reps we saw during the open sessions of OTAs and minicamp featured at least five DBs on the field, other than short-yardage packages.
