Kyle Shanahan Sizes Up the Detriot Lions Defense

It's not great.

SANTA CLARA -- The Lions offense is one of the best in the league, but their defense sure isn't.

This season, the Lions defense ranked 23rd out of 32 teams in points allowed and 27th in passing yards allowed. Here's what Shanahan said Wednesday about the Lions defense, courtesy of the 49ers' P.R. department.

Q: What are your impressions of the Lions cornerbacks?

SHANAHAN: “They play with their defense. They make some plays. Their whole defense, you see in numbers, and you see 31st I think in the pass game. But then when you watch the tape you kind of realize how they are. They're aggressive in what they do. They mix everything up, which makes them susceptible to big plays. They're also fourth in causing negatives. I think they're leading the league in the last five games in turnovers. If not, they’re top-five or something like that. They're a team that really is very aggressive in what they do, which is going to make you hit or miss. But they cause more negative plays than I think anyone in the NFL. I want to say it was fourth on the whole year. They tie right into that.”

Q: What challenges do you have looking at the Lions defense schematically and also personnel-wise and just trying to pick them apart and figure out which areas to attack?

SHANAHAN: “They're different almost every week. So, you’ve kind of got to see that in the game and how they play. They'll switch stuff up. If they get on beat on something, it's going to be something different next time. So, the consistency is they're going to attack and be aggressive. But it's not in terms of just coverages, fronts and all that stuff. They're running around trying to create confusion, trying to create negative plays. That's how they get their turnovers. That's how they don't mind giving you a lot of stuff and all of a sudden they create a negative play on second down and you're in third-and-15. Really, I feel that's their goal to the game. You saw that with Tampa. There was three of their drives they were moving the ball really well. Whether it was second down or third down, they made a mistake and just like that they were off the field and really had to surrender on third-and-long. They're opportunistic and they create it. When you pair that with a really good offense, it only takes a couple drives for the whole game to change up real fast.”