Lions Insider

The Lions have added talent and depth to the back seven of their defense through free agency and the draft this offseason, but make no mistake about it, the defense will ultimately go only as far as the big guys up front can take them.

“I do like that pressure because that makes us step our game up,” defensive tackle Corey Williams said Saturday. “We have to set the tempo and the linebackers and safeties and everybody look up to us. If we're having a good game, they're having a good game. If we're not, they always look to us to pick up the tempo for them.”

The first two units at both defensive tackle and defensive end for the Lions could probably start on most of the teams in the NFL, which says a lot about their depth. It also speaks volumes to the many ways the Lions can attack teams up front.

One of those methods will be moving players around more than they have in past seasons, especially versatile players like Ndamukong Suh and Nick Fairley.

Defensive coordinator Gunther Cunningham is hoping it makes the Lions less predictable on defense.

“Well, I call it ‘Grey.’ There’s a great movie out called Grey and if you watch it you’ll know what I mean,” Cunningham said. “The wolves kind of trick (the human characters). They trick them, and the ending of it is great. That’s kind of what we’re doing. We started in the OTAs.

“A couple of coaches wanted to wait and I said, ‘Well, 51-percent says you can’t, so let’s start.’ The players really liked it. We’ve got a lot of varieties of those things we’re doing where they’re up and down.”

Cunningham used the Pittsburgh Steelers as an example of a defense that's made a good living over the years by moving players around in their scheme.

“We’re very athletic with a couple of them,” Cunningham said. “Suh and Fairley can really run and that excites me. We can move some of the ends around, too. Lawrence Jackson has had a good camp.”

Williams says the defensive line is way ahead of where it was last year, even without defensive end Cliff Avril, who has yet to sign his franchise tender and report to camp. The defensive line had a whole offseason to work together this year. It had time to find good combinations and to move players around. Essentially, the Lions were afforded some time to experiment with the unit this offseason.

“I think we're better than we was last year,” Williams said. “We got all the guys back and guys getting used to playing off each other. We got Nick (Fairley) coming in and Nick, he's a great athlete; he's playing inside and outside. We just got to continue to play together and get better.”