Aaron Glenn Is Not Head Coach Material

Through four games, Aaron Glenn has not solved Detroit Lions defensive issues.

The Detroit Lions might have been down three of their core offensive weapons on Sunday: D'Andre Swift, Amon-Ra St. Brown and DJ Chark. 

However, it wasn't the story of the Lions' Week 4 loss to the Seattle Seahawks. Instead, it was the struggles of Aaron Glenn's defense, a common theme for most of this season.

Seattle was averaging just 15.7 points per game prior to Sunday. 

Yet, Glenn's unit couldn't stop Geno Smith and the Seahawks' offense from the start.

In fact, Smith & Co. opened up the contest with an 11-play, 75-yard scoring drive. It was capped off by a 17-yard touchdown pass from Smith to tight end Will Dissly.

And, it was just the beginning of Detroit's defensive woes. 

Dan Campbell's team failed to get a single sack of Smith, and allowed him to escape the pocket way too easily all game long.

The Seattle signal-caller ran for a season-high 49 yards and a score, and he was efficient through the air. He completed 23-of-30 passes for 320 yards and two touchdowns, en route to recording a 132.6 passer rating. 

He consistently was allotted an ample amount of time to pick apart Glenn's defense. 

Additionally, on seven of those 23 completions from Smith, he connected with DK Metcalf, the Seahawks' No. 1 wide receiver. 

Metcalf had a field day with Detroit's secondary, including third-year cornerback Jeff Okudah. 

It was Okudah's worst game of the year in coverage, and he and his defensive back counterparts allowed Metcalf to record seven catches for 149 yards.  

© Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK

That wasn't the worst of it for Campbell's defense on this day, though. 

Instead, it came on a third-and-16 play, with 0:33 to play in the third quarter. 

Detroit had just scored to cut the Seahawks' lead to eight points, 31-23, on a 51-yard touchdown run from Jamaal Williams. 

So, momentum had begun to shift in favor of the Lions, and they had forced Seattle into a third-and-long situation. 

Yet, on that play, Glenn drew up a blitz, and his defense proceeded to collapse like it had all game long. 

The Lions were thrown off guard by the Seahawks' decision to call a run play, and as a result, no one was present on the third level of the defense to stop running back Rashaad Penny. Penny subsequently found the end zone from 36 yards out for the back-breaking score.

Penny broke the hearts of fans gathered at Ford Field once again late in the fourth quarter. 

After the Lions had cut the Seahawks' lead to three, 41-38, with a touchdown pass from Jared Goff to T.J. Hockenson, Penny and Seattle responded on the ensuing drive with a touchdown of their own. On a third-and-5 at Detroit's 41-yard line, Penny gashed the Lions for a long TD run.

Penny finished the contest with 151 yards and two touchdowns (on 17 carries), and averaged 8.9 yards per carry. 

The Lions' defense was so porous Sunday that Seattle never had to punt, the first time in Seahawks franchise history that the team didn't have to punt in a game. 

It was a tragically poor showing from Detroit on the defensive side of the ball. And, with the performance, the Lions have now allowed an average of 35 points a game, and have yet to play a solid four quarters of football defensively this season. 

In his postgame presser, Campbell expressed his dismay regarding the lack of improvement from the defense. 

“Listen, it’s frustrating. It’s frustrating, and I have nobody to blame but myself," Campbell told reporters. "It’s on me to handle it. Can’t keep saying that, can’t keep writing that. We’re going to look at everything.”

It's hard for the Lions' offense to overcome such a subpar performance from the defense on a weekly basis, even with the playmakers that the team possesses offensively (i.e. Swift and St. Brown).

And, even with Swift and St. Brown missing in action Sunday, Goff and the Lions' offense did more than enough to win, scoring a season-high 45 points in the contest. That should be a more-than-sufficient amount of points to win a game in the National Football League.

Sure, you can bring up the fact that Goff threw a pick-six, which obviously didn't help the Lions' case in their attempt to secure the Week 4 win. However, he also completed 26-of-39 passes for 378 yards and four touchdowns, equating to a passer rating of 121.5. 

It's why you can't truly blame the veteran signal-caller for the loss.

Despite the disappointing nature of the defeat, Goff vowed, after Sunday's game, to keep supporting his teammates on the defensive side of the ball. 

"You keep supporting them, and it'll come around," Goff said. "We trust those guys, we trust those coaches, trust those players. And, I'll tell you one thing: I know what happens if you don't support them. It goes downhill real quickly. So, you know, if we want to stay in this fight and have any chance, let's stick together and remain a team." 

To me, if you're going to point the finger at anyone for Sunday's loss, it has to be Glenn. He clearly didn't have his defense prepared for Smith, who is nothing more than a competent backup quarterback at this point in his career. 

Yet, Glenn's defense made him look like a high-end No. 1 QB. And, his unit also had no answer for Penny and Seattle's ground attack. 

So, it didn't matter what kind of output the Lions got from their offense Sunday. They weren't going to stop Smith and the Seahawks' offense anyways. 

It's time to start criticizing Glenn for the ineffective play of the defense, which failed Detroit yet again in its Week 4 loss to Seattle.

Remember, Glenn interviewed for multiple NFL head coaching jobs over the offseason, and was thought to be carving a path to becoming a head man in the league one day. 

However, through the first quarter of the 2022 campaign, he has proven time and time again that he's far from head coach material. 

If landing a head coaching gig was even the slightest thought in his head, he needs to remove it immediately. The only thing he should be worried about right now is fixing the Lions' inept defense.