Detroit Lions DC Kelvin Sheppard Is 'Much More Comfortable' In Year Two

Kelvin Sheppard is entering his second season as Detroit Lions defensive coordinator in 2026, and there’s no doubt he’s grown much more comfortable in his role. Just ask his boss and Lions head coach Dan Campbell.

“Yes, I think he is much more comfortable,” Campbell expressed to reporters during OTAs. “I think he’s got a much better grasp of how he wants it to look, now he’s coaching all of it, he’s coaching the front, he’s coaching the backers and he’s coaching the backend, he sees it all. And that’s what happens when you’re able to do it, you go through a season, you go through the practices, you kind of key and diagnose yourself as a play-caller and as a, ‘Hey this is where we can get a little bit better.’ You can’t help to get better, whether you’re a head coach or an OC, DC, special teams, you just – time on task, under pressure, under duress and making corrections, man adapting to personnel, injuries, and he’s done all that. So, I love where Shepp is at right now.”

It was a “baptism of fire” for Sheppard in his debut campaign running the Lions’ defense. For a second consecutive season, Detroit was ravaged by injury on the defensive side of the ball, and it dipped to 22nd in the league in points allowed (24.3/game).

It was not where the Lions wanted to be as a unit, leading to Detroit general manager Brad Holmes making a number of upgrades this offseason. Most notably, he added EDGE defenders D.J. Wonnum and Derrick Moore, as well as defensive backs Christian Izien and Roger McCreary.

Although Holmes did not make the splashy acquisition to upgrade the pass-rush or secondary, he still made a concerted effort to get the defense back on track headed into Sheppard’s second year calling plays.

Additionally, Sheppard has grown more confident in performing his job, after garnering plenty of valuable experiences and knowledge from last season.

“I think it is just human nature when you have more time on task with something or hopefully so – I say hopefully you are not going backward, you are going forward in life,” Sheppard said. “But, that is just natural with time on task. Again I told the players today that is why we practice, guys. Repetition, it becomes muscle memory. Now, I have gone through a season of where I have had to adapt and I have had to adjust. I saw where things might of should of went one way and it didn’t go that way. Well, why? And identifying that, so now that the next time that exact same circumstance comes up, ‘Oh yeah, guys, we talked about this last year, this is what we are going to do. This is how we are going to attack that.’”

During OTAs, Sheppard and the defense also benefited from getting a chance to observe the looks of first-year Lions offensive play-caller Drew Petzing.

In that sense, the second-year defensive coordinator is ensuring his unit isn’t going to be surprised by anything presented by opposing offenses this upcoming season.

“I love my staff and I live and die by those guys because I have yet to hear a guy say, ‘Well, we don’t have those safeties. What are we going to do?’ Or, ‘That was a hard play.’ Well, life is hard,” Sheppard commented. “That’s why you get tasked with these jobs and responsibilities. It is our job as coaches and leaders to figure it out and make it easy on the players that have got to go out there and perform.”

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