The Detroit Lions are playing more of their base defense under Kelvin Sheppard than they have before in the Dan Campbell era and that’s affected the playing reps of nickel cornerback Amik Robertson.
Detroit played 54.5 percent of their defensive snaps last year in nickel defense, per Tru Media. That number is down to 37.6 percent the first three weeks of the season, which ranks 30th out of 32 teams. For comparison, Seattle leads the league playing nickel 84 percent of the time.
Robertson has played in 89 defensive snaps this season, just over half the defensive reps. The Lions want to see that number go up but don’t necessarily want to change the way their playing defense right now.
“When you’re able to deploy four and five linebacker sets and formations and play any of your defenses, that’s a different ball game,” Lions defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard said Thursday.
“I mean, you see a lot of people get in these faster groupings, but it’s pretty much X, Y, Z. We’re getting into these groupings and still playing first, second down football or we could play the third-and-long game with you with all the same groupings.”
Playing that kind of scheme allows Detroit the ability to present the same looks pre-snap and then post-snap be able to play a different variety of coverages and different variety of pressure packages, but it keeps the nickel cornerback off the field.
Expect Robertson to rotate playing some outside cornerback with second-year cornerback Terrion Arnold, who has had an up-and-down start to his second season.
“It’s not like I’m down on TA or TA’s having a bad year, that’s not it,” Sheppard said. “We’re talking a few plays, but when you play out there, those few plays get exposed and highlighted a lot more than it does.
“All we have to do right now is find a way to bring that confidence that we saw when you were out there against Jameson Williams and (Amon-Ra) St. Brown all camp to gameday.”
Sheppard said Robertson has earned the right to be on the field and they are going to look for more ways to do that without disrupting their scheme.
“Whatever they think is best for the team, man, I’m all in,” Robertson said Thursday. “Of course, each and every time I’m on the field I try to be the best I can be and one of the best guys out there.”
Robertson did admit it’s sometimes tough to get into a rhythm coming on and off the field playing half the snaps.
“I just feel like that’s my role and I’m going to do whatever I can to try and take advantage of my opportunity,” he said. “They are going to try and get me more involved. I’m all in. Whatever it is to help the team. I’m all in.”