All Episodes

July 25, 2025 • 15 mins
Kelvin Sheppard is confident and comfortable in his new role as Lions Defensive Coordinator, but is the fanbase buying what he's selling?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I want to give credit to Dan camb Win Aaron
Glenn because it's exactly what I thought it would be.
And I'm humbly saying that I don't feel overwhelmed. I
got asked by somebody close to me yesterday do you
feel do you feel any overwhelmed? Do you feel discomfort?
I've never felt that, and that's a blessing to be
able to say that in my first year, in my
first six months of doing this, and I credit my

(00:20):
staff for that.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
This isn't my stuff. I'm saying, this is our stuff.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
So I'm not ever going to stand up here and
say like I'm some genius guru and I invented football.
The trust is there. There's no looking over your shoulder.
I don't have to go in position rooms and wonder
what's being said. I know it's one voice. And when
you have that level of comfortability within your staff, I'm
able to do more of my coordinator stuff versus looking
over people's shoulders.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Well that's a good bite, isn't it, Kelvin Shephard, Yeah,
I love it. I do too. Shaved that William. When
you hear that, what do you think of? What does
it tell you about him. Well, I just say he's
very humble. I think he's very confident.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
I love what he said about how you know, I
didn't invite I didn't invent football.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
I'm not a guru. This is our voice, this is
our stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yeah, I like that too. I really like that he
doesn't have to worry about going into a certain room.
Defensive Backs, linebackers, defensive line, they all have their own rooms.
If you've ever been to the practice facility in Allen Park,
I shouldn't expect people to have done. But you'll walk
down the hallway and you'll see, you know, a running
backs room, You'll see linebacker's room. You'll see they break

(01:38):
off into meetings. Okay, it's not it's not Vince Lombardi
with a chalkboard and everybody's drawing on stuff. You know,
not that you thought it would be that. Times of change,
there's times of change. There are different rooms for different
position players. So the wide receivers go to their room.
It's a classroom, okay, with a big video board. See

(02:00):
they can watch and okay, they learn and they go
over scouting and all that other stuff. Coordinators are going
broom to room. We're going to the defensive backs. We're
going to the defensive line, We're going to linebackers. Okay,
he goes into those rooms supremely confident, not worried. Whs
he leaves if man, that dude is over his head.

(02:22):
This is going to be a tough dude, tough sell.
Because this dude has done this for the first time.
You can tell he's not worried about any of that stuff.
He is confident. He knows his stuff, The players know
where he's coming from, and his coaches support him, and
his confidence should give fans confidence. You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (02:45):
All this talk about losing the coordinators. If you just
heard what Kelvin Shepard just said, you should be confident
as a fan that he can slide in and take
over this defense.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Just fine. Yeah, you and I can disagree on that.
I understand why you'd feel that way. That doesn't give
me confidence. What gives me confidence is whether or not
his team performs. Guy can know it all he wants.
Every shouldn't say every just about every offense and defensive
coordinator has to know their offense and defense respectively. Just

(03:17):
because they know it doesn't give me confidence. Okay, that's fair. Okay,
What gives me confidence is when that team goes out
and executes it right. That's when I'll gain the confidence.
I've seen and you've seen a lot of coaches, a
lot of front office people come in and say the
right things, and you're like, that dude knows what he's doing,

(03:40):
he knows what he's talking about. Right. Absolutely, there are
brilliant people who haven't been able to be a head coach.
I'm sure there's a lot of brilliant assistants haven't been
able to be a coordinator. Implementing it those players implement
it really important for me. Okay, So can I ask

(04:01):
you a question to you? It's not gonna this is
not a broadbrush If I'm not telling Trent Beally, you
can't be confident in Calvin Shepard. Okay, I'm telling you,
I like the way he goes about his business, how
he feels about his team, but more importantly, how it
feels about himself as a coordinator. This is a hard

(04:22):
thing to do. This is the first time you've done it,
so there is bound to be you would think some
insecurity there somebody who says, man, I mean, I've worked
really hard to get here. I don't want anybody taking
my job. I want everyone to know you almost go
above and beyond to prove you're ready for it. You

(04:42):
know what I mean by that. I'll show you how
good I am. This is what Just go about your business.
You know what I'm saying, do it, players, implement what
you're preaching, and that everything else will come after that.
It's easy to say that for me, but when you're
in that position and it's your first time and it's
what you've worked your entire life for, there's a part

(05:04):
of me that goes, now, I really got to prove myself.
I've proved myself to get there. Now I've got to
prove it even more to stay there. Do you know
what I mean? I do?

Speaker 3 (05:12):
And I guess a more fair way to put it,
I guess from my end would be I have reason
to believe in Kelvin Shepherd. But you and I both
know that talk is cheap, and I guess that's the
That's the bottom line here, And I want to ask
you this, how many.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
Press conference What he says in a press conference may
for the for the most part, Trent, Look, I may
look at it and go that's awesome, and maybe it
validates how I feel about the guy, But I can't
be confident in him yet until his team, until you
see it forms.

Speaker 3 (05:42):
So how many how many above average defensive performances would
you need to see before you would be confident in
the I don't even defensive coordinator.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
I don't even know if it's his defensive performances. I
think it's the little things that convince me. All right. See,
like I agreed with I liked, we have to go
back to the other coordinators. I'm sorry, but I really
appreciated Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn for how they handled
losses and how they handled situations. The unpredictability I don't

(06:14):
mean gadget plays. I mean the unpredictability of Ben Johnson
that in certain run down situations he threw, In certain
throwing situations, you would have guessed he was passing or
a running I should say, the willingness to run certain
plays at certain parts of the field and into certain

(06:38):
boundaries and so on. It's just a feel for all
of us, Okay. I don't know if there's one particular play.
I don't know if there's one particular game, And I
sure as hell can't tell you how many performances. It
is a feel for all of us. If you have
that feel right now, that's not wrong. I'm talking about
me only, all right. If Trent Bally says I'm confident

(07:00):
in Kelvin Sheppard because of what you just heard, that's fine,
not saying you're wrong. I need more. I need more
than words.

Speaker 3 (07:09):
I think it's okay to expect more than words. I
think that's more than reasonable.

Speaker 1 (07:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
Yeah, Like he said this too right or wrong, fair
or unfair. He said, I'm not going to talk about numbers,
statistics or any of that, but I see in Aiden
Hutchinson a better player than we had last year. And
then he said you might think in hearing that whoa.

(07:36):
That's the same thing I said when I saw him
out there, I'm like, whoa. But if you know hutch
and the way he works and the way he attacked
his rehab a week after the surgery, he's in here
trying to work out things like that, it's not a surprise.
Remember four and a half games, seven and a half sacks,

(08:00):
forty five pressures. I don't care if you played against
him when he was a divine child. I don't care
if you're a Spartan fan and you hate him because
he's a Wolverine. I don't care. If you wanted somebody
else in the draft and they took him instead, and
he's proven you wrong. Those are gaudy flip and numbers. Yep,

(08:23):
And I hope no matter what your case, if you're
a I don't know, if you're a Catholic League guy
and you played against him and he beats you and
he broke your heart or whatever, or he said something
spiteful against Ohio State and you're a big buck Geys fan.
If you're a Lions fan and you don't root for
this dude, shame on you.

Speaker 3 (08:42):
Guy's a badass chef. I'm a Spartan. He's one of
my favorite players on Alliance Top three.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
Good for you love the guy, but you're kind of
unique in that regard. It might be well you hated
him while he was an ann Arberg. You should I'm
okay with that. Why wouldn't you.

Speaker 3 (08:58):
I hated that he got the Heisman Nation over Kenneth Walker,
But right, that's all water under the bridge because he's
a Lion and you.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
Had every right to think Kenneth Walker. I don't blame
you one bit. Come on, man, I mean, let's be
smart about this again. Separate the emotion from the brain. Really,
Kenneth Walker deserved to be in that discussion. Ayden Hutchin
could have been in the Hutchinson could have been in
the discussion too. But yeah, you should be. You should not.
You shouldn't like your rival, that's great, But when things
changed like this, you better like Tyler Williams. I hope.

(09:27):
So if you don't, I mean, what the hell's wrong
with you?

Speaker 3 (09:31):
I always go back to Taylor Decker. He's one of
your most productive players. He's came from Ohio State. He
was a Matt Patricia pick, you.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
Know, really really good one. Yeah, oh my god, it's
Matt Patricia. I want everybody gone from Matt Patricia, Tara,
I can't stand up.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
Now.

Speaker 2 (09:44):
You're gonna blame the player associated with the idiot coach company.

Speaker 3 (09:49):
You know who else? Bob Quinn picked Frank Ragnow. But whatever,
good one, really good one. We're not gonna go so
far as to get incredit.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
But what they did last year similar to what you
and I have talked about sometimes with ala Vila. But
it was a really good pick. And by the way,
it was an unpopular pick because it's a center. But
you miss him now. Did you read Taylor Decker's comments
about him recently, How he's his best friend, he's happy

(10:18):
for him. I worried about him all this other stuff,
but he's in a good place. He's as irreplaceable a
player as you can get. Taylor Decker said he thinks
he's a Hall of Famer. That might be a little
bit too close to the situation. He's one of the best,
if not the best centers Detroit's ever had. Not always

(10:38):
the highest bar because when you talk about centers, you
want to compare him to DERMONDI. Dawson, you want to
compare him to Mike Webster and players of that ilk.
But he's the best Lion center since Kevin Glover. Right,
he's better than Kevin Glover was. Yeah, he's the best
they've ever had. You and I have seen the best

(10:59):
wide receither this franchise has ever had, the best quarterback
this franchise has ever had. I know people will say
Bobby Lane, I don't think Bobby Lank can touch Matthew Stafford.
Same the best, the best center they've ever had. By
the time the man is done, Penney Sewell will probably

(11:19):
be their best tackle they have ever had. I've seen
their best running back of all time. I've seen their
best tight end of all time, Charlie Sanders. We're seeing
a lot of really good players. We want to be rewarded.
And I don't blame it, but it's it. But it's

(11:41):
the Hutchinson thing is I worry that it might be
too much, that you might you might be going over
the top. Who would know better than he would not me,
because he's watching it. He's breaking down film. He's seeing
he saw the rehab. You and I read about the rehab.

(12:02):
He's watching how this guy goes to work. We're taking
his words and reading about them so that dude knows
he said this. It's about going out in live action,
getting those hits, taking those blows, building that mental piece
back to where it's not so. In other words, the

(12:22):
easy thing is to go look at the production right,
watch this dude go out, beat a tackle, use a
swim move, use a swim an inside move as well,
use a club whatever to get to the quarterback. Kelvin
Shephard is saying, he's taking hits. That's a good thing.

(12:46):
That's the mental part of it. You break your legs,
somebody falls to your leg, what do you immediately think
that's natural? That's human nature, the injury. Yeah right, My
wife was in a head on accident. She will twenty
nineteen January twenty nineteen. She was in a head on collision.

(13:08):
Guy ran a red light, hit him head on. Eight
surgeries in the hospital rehab and doesn't sleep well. Bad neck,
you know, all come bars and screws in her back.
Metal in her back goes off through the metal detector
every single time. She won't drive near that space ever again.

(13:29):
And she'll never never get in a car. She's got
to get in a suv something that's up high. It's
the mental state. It's just it's never going to change. Okay,
it's not always easy, but that's what she lives through.
The mental state is as hard as the physical part,
maybe even harder. With Aiden Hutchinson, same thing. You got

(13:54):
to get through being hit again on that leg that's
been broken and in foot. It's inevitable, right, someone's gonna
try and chop you. Somebody's gonna come back and crock
bike position. Yeah, yes, you're gonna get caught up in
the I love this phrase, caught up in the wash
and guys are gonna roll. This is what happens. He said,

(14:18):
watch out for this and watch for that moment. That's
when when you're on that position, you're on that edge,
and there's guys coming at you and you're you're you're
moving toward the football on the right or the left,
and there are bodies all around. It can't be watch

(14:40):
out for this and watch out for that. You've just
got to play. He said. You can only build that
through training camp with the pads on live reps, and
we do have that setting here. The joint practices will
be really good for Hutchinson. Hutch going against a foreign
opponent where you don't kind of know the tend to

(15:00):
and it's not as controlled as things like that. But
I see a better player, quite frankly, and I'm looking
for hutch to have a big season. He's one of
the pillars of the defense. The last part is pretty obvious.
That's encouraging.
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know
Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC

Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

Ā© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.