ALLEN PARK — Kelvin Sheppard couldn’t have asked for a better start to his tenure as defensive coordinator of the Detroit Lions.
While it’s still early in the offseason program, the 38-year-old coach is already seeing the benefits of a supportive staff and players who are buying in from the jump.
This season will be Sheppard’s first leading the defense, stepping into the role vacated by his mentor, former Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn, who left Detroit to become head coach of the New York Jets.
Speaking with reporters Thursday, Sheppard outlined the non-negotiables he’ll be demanding from his players on day one.
“I told them the first thing first, you get down to the A’s. And what I mean with the A’s, it starts with your assignment,” Sheppard explained. “You have to know what to do. It’s your alignment. You have to know where to be. It’s the attention to detail. And then obviously the last thing is the execution. So what are we seeing when we hit the play button? Not what’s coming out of your mouth and you telling us what you can do. It’s showing us what you can do.
“And all the guys have bought into that. It’s been a culture that’s been here, set in place pretty much from the day I got here, and it’s just carried over. It’s starting to emphasize certain things within our structure. But it all goes back to the little details within things in the new system now.”
While Sheppard has big shoes to fill following Glenn’s departure, so does his successor.
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Sheppard, who has watched Hamilton’s growth up close, shared his full confidence in his former player’s ability to lead the room. That belief is mutual. Hamilton credited Sheppard as a major influence, both in his playing days and now as a coach.
“It’s helped me out tremendously,” Hamilton said. “I think that he’s probably one of the better coaches that I’ve had a chance to play for as a player. Once you start working with him, then OK, you start picking his brain even more, you’re like, ‘Damn, he’s really sharp, man.’ Every day from when I first started coaching, even from playing to coaching, every day I’m with him, I’m taking little nuggets from him. He’s an extremely great teacher of football, not just linebacker, but football. Dumbing things down. Making the complex simple for guys. He’s really good at that, even for coaches, as well.”
Sheppard echoed that praise with a clear endorsement.
“I mean, as far as the mental aspect that it takes to do the job that he’s been thrusted into, the personality, the tenacity, the love of the game — he has every quality you look for,” Sheppard said of Hamilton. “The same things that AG saw in me, I see in him. Now we’re not the same person. Just as I’m not AG, he’s not me. So he has his own way of doing things, which I’m fully confident in. I’m not hovering over his shoulder. That’s his room, that’s his guys, and I’ve told him 1,000 times, run it the way you see fit, and he’s doing an unbelievable job thus far.
“Just like me, just like anyone you get in a new position, there’s gonna be growing pains and learning pains, and he’s working through those seamlessly.
“But that — I mean, I truly believe he’s gonna be another fast-riser in this thing. I mean, I was just coaching him three years ago, so it’s crazy, it’s kind of surreal. He told me the other day how, ‘Man, all the room is, ‘Yes, sir. No, sir.’ I’m Ham.’ No. It shows the respect factor that he’s gained already, being new in his role. I told him, ‘That’s a compliment, bro.’ When people your same age — who really, quite frankly, are his peers — have that type of respect for you after a couple weeks of working together, it’s credit to him.”