Dan Campbell Detroit Lions
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The conclusion of Week 4 is typically an important milestone for every NFL team, including the Detroit Lions. The sample size is now large enough to see trends both in terms of team strengths and weaknesses.
For the 2026 Lions, it’s pretty obvious where the weakness lies — on defense, particularly in the secondary.
The Lions yielded 445 yards of offense in the 32-26 loss to the Carolina Panthers on Sunday night. Of those yards, 318 of them were through the air.
In three of the first four games this season, the Lions have allowed at least 440 yards. The team’s secondary is yielding 304 passing yards per game.
Most importantly, opponents are averaging 32 points per game against the Lions defense.
After the Week 4 loss Sunday night, head coach Dan Campbell didn’t put anyone on notice or threaten to make personnel or coaching changes. But he made an indirect yet rather blunt admission on his secondary.
“It’s not good enough right now. That’s the bottom line. It’s just not good enough,” Campbell said to reporters. “We’ve got to score more points. We’ve got to be more efficient than we’ve been. We got off to a slow start. We had two opportunities there at the end, and we didn’t get it done.
“So we’ve got to be better there, and we have to get takeaways on defense. That’s going to have to be our recipe.”
In other words, Campbell’s defensive game plan going forward isn’t going to be centered on trying to stop all the passing yards. Instead, it sounds like Campbell’s defense will try to limit the opposition’s scoring through takeaways and red zone defense.
The other part of the head coach’s 2026 recipe is the offense scoring more than the 29.8 points per game it’s averaging through the first quarter of the season.
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Dave Holcomb is a sports reporter covering the NFL and MLB for Heavy.com, with a focus on the Pittsburgh Steelers and a variety of other NFL teams. Originally from Pittsburgh, Holcomb has covered college and professional sports for outlets including FanSided, Rotowire and Yardbarker. More about Dave Holcomb
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