After an embarrassing loss to the short-handed Carolina Panthers on Sunday night, the Detroit Lions have a ton of questions to answer ahead of Week 5. Allowing more yards and points than any other team in the NFL through four games, the Lions are fortunate to be 2-2 right now.
Worse than their record, however, is their helplessness. The Lions' defense has been pathetic since the start of the season, and neither Dan Campbell nor Kelvin Sheppard seems to have the answer.
The most frustrating aspect of it all for the fans is the lack of urgency that the team is operating under. This was made evident in their unwillingness to beat the Dallas Cowboys' trade offer for Joey Porter Jr. earlier in the week.
The Cowboys traded a 2028 second-round pick and a 2027 sixth-round pick for the 26-year-old cornerback. Campbell admitted that they were exploring a trade for Porter Jr., but nothing materialized.
Seeing Porter Jr. make his debut in a Cowboys uniform on the same day Lions fans watched Tetairoa McMillan absolutely torch their secondary made things even worse.
Lions will regret not trading for Joey Porter Jr.
Porter Jr. made an immediate impact for Dallas as he helped lead the Cowboys to a road win over the Texans. In the 25 defensive snaps he played, the former Steeler allowed zero targets. He didn't make any explosive plays, but he was solid in his stint, showing a glimpse of how he could help the Cowboys.
Even though Porter Jr. received a run-of-the-mill 61.3 defensive grade on Pro Football Focus in Week 4, this is still higher than all of Detroit's cornerbacks average defensive grades for the seaon.
DJ Reed is off to a slow start. Rock Ya-Sin was so bad in the first three weeks of the season that he was benched against the Panthers. Ennis Rakestraw Jr. just started to earn some defensive snaps here and there, and Roger McCreary has been inconsistent all year.
This is an uninspiring group of cornerbacks. The Lions will get some help in the defensive backfield when Brian Branch returns, but their struggles on the outside will continue. Porter Jr. could have given the Lions a boost, but GM Brad Holmes decided to stand pat.
Campbell and Holmes refuse to admit that this roster needs an upgrade. They seem content with the depth and quality of the defensive unit. They believe that they could be a good defense if the team just executed better.
However, better players are more likely to execute better. Porter Jr. wasn't going to solve all of Detroit's issues, but he could have been a big step in the right direction.
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