Detroit Lions defense will be ‘hard-hitting, vicious, physical’
By Josh Sanchez
The Detroit Lions enter 2014 with a new coaching staff, and it appears that the new men in charge are looking to make Detroit a much nastier team on both sides of the ball.
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According to safety James Ihedigbo, the Lions defense will be key to the team’s success and they plan on making their impact felt by wearing down on opposing offenses with a physical brand of play.
“Our defense, we dictate what offenses are doing,” Ihedigbo told Josh Katzenstein of the Detroit News.
“We don’t let them dictate to us anything. We control the game, and that’s our mind-set. When you go against us, you’re going to be going against a hard-hitting, vicious, physical team on defense and on offense.”
If being physical and vicious is something that the Lions new coaching staff is looking to implement with the team, it certainly appears as if the players are buying into the philosophy.
Lions linebacker Stephen Tulloch echoed Ihedigbo’s comments whenever he spoke of the team’s defense entering the season.
“We’re going to be aggressive, there’s no question about it,” Tulloch said. “We’re going to get after it — zone coverage, man, blitz; we’re going to do it all. We’re going to be able to mix things up.”
If the Lions defense can bring this level of physicality and intensity to the field, they could prove to be a big problem for the rest of the NFC North.
Of course, they will also have to stay disciplined, so we will see how everything plays out when the season rolls around.