The Detroit Lions defense needed some serious changes this offseason after the team’s efficiency dropped from the seventh-best scoring defense to 22nd in 2025. Detroit promised to look at everything, and while a complete overhaul of the scheme they’ve been using since 2021 was always unlikely, coaches have promised that they will tweak the system to fit the talent of their players.

Last weekend, the Lions drafted defensive players with five of their seven selections, showcasing that they need there was a talent deficiency on that side of the ball. But can their specific picks tell us anything about the strategic, schematic, or philosophical tweaks they are making to the team?

On one hand, all you have to do is look at the pure numbers of players at each position to suggest there may be some personnel changes in 2026. The Lions played more based defense (three linebacker sets) than anyone in 2025, but if you look at their depth chart right now (including the Lions’ two signings on Wednedsay), Detroit only has eight linebackers (including reported UDFA signing Erick Hunter) compared to 16 defensive backs. Detroit has several members of the secondary who can play in the slot, so is this a sign they plan on playing more nickel in 2026?

Additionally, the players they added to the defensive line seem to bring more pass rush juice than run stuffing. And Detroit has yet to really add a nose tackle to replace the likes DJ Reader or Roy Lopez. Has the team quietly admitted they’ve relied too much on stopping the run and need to tilt the scales a little more toward rushing the passer?

Or we could take things even further. With no true nose tackle, but several movable parts on the interior defensive line, could we see the Lions move to a 3-4 base defense? Given how much we’ve seen Aidan Hutchinson, DJ Wonnum, and rookie Derrick Moore play as a stand-up defensive end, Detroit would certainly have the personnel to make a change like that, especially considering it would only require two true off-ball linebackers. But is that too drastic of a change?

Erik Schlitt and I discuss that and a whole lot more in this week’s episode of the Midweek Mailbag. Other questions this week include:

Check out the full episode of the Midweek Mailbag on your favorite podcasting platform or just use the Spotify embed below.

Or if you’d prefer the video version of the show, it’s available on our YouTube page and Twitch Channel. And don’t forget to subscribe and set up notification so you can catch us live!

How are Detroit Pistons fans feeling, with their team — the No. 1 seed in the conference — down 3-1 and facing elimination against the Orlando Magic on their home court Wednesday night?

It’s a touchy subject.

“We don’t want to talk about that,” said Sandy Maizi of West Bloomfield.

His brother-in-law, Dominic Dallo, summed it up with a phrase his son James, 10, coined when he was in preschool: “Ner-cited.” Nervous… but also excited, he explained.

Certainly, it wasn’t the position fans expected to be in by Game 5. To advance, the Pistons must now win three games straight, including at least one in Orlando. But many were still keeping the faith ahead of tip-off.

“We’ll win tonight,” said Brandon VanBeekom of Traverse City. “Just take it one game at a time.”

He and his wife, Randi, took their kids Liam, 8, and Oliver, 11, out of school early Wednesday to drive down to Detroit for the game. The kids thought they were leaving school early for a dentist appointment.

“I figured it out,” Oliver said. His teacher giving him two days’ worth of homework on his way out the door for his “dentist appointment” was a big clue. His parents, both in the car decked in Pistons gear, was the other.

It was the first playoff game for both boys.

It was also the first playoff game for first cousins James Dallo and Noah Maizi.

After a pit-stop on the way down I-75 for three games and some questionable “chili,” the Tigers continued south to visit the red-hot Atlanta ball club for the opener of a three-game series on Tuesday night. The Tigers’ bats ran cold, two key players left the game with injuries, and they dropped the opener to the tune of a 5-2 tally.

Making his sixth start of the season for the Tigers was Casey Mize, and he’s looked good in his last couple of starts before tonight. Arguably, his April 17 outing in Boston was one of the best of his career: 6 2/3 shutout innings, three hits, one walk and seven strikeouts? By the stat of Game Score — a rough index to try and determine how good a start is — that was a 74, the highest of his career, one above a stellar start in 2021 against the Mariners. (There are some names in that box score, eh?)

Advertisement

Facing Mize and the Tigers was lefty Martín Pérez, making his fourth start (against two relief appearances) for Atlanta this year. He spent nine years in the Rangers’ rotation before bouncing around a little: some time with the Twins, another stint in Texas, and the south side of Chicago last year. He didn’t make Atlanta’s big-league roster out of Spring Training, but was quickly recalled from Triple-A and has had some nice appearances so far. He’ll give you some innings, won’t dominate you too often, generally limits home-run power and, while he used to be an extreme ground-ball pitcher early in his career, has become much less so recently.

On the first pitch of the bottom of the first, Ronald Acuña Jr. smacked a double to the wall, but Mize was able to get the next three batters and strand him at third. He then sawed-through the next three batters in the second, including featuring that right-on-right splitter that, earlier in his career, he’d use primarily against lefties alone.

Meanwhile, Pérez was pulling the string with his changeup more than a kid with a new Chatty Cathy doll: he struck out both Spencer Torkelson, Kevin McGonigle and Jahmai Jones (three hitters on heaters lately) with straight change-ups right down the middle. You know what I said about not dominating teams? Well, he had it tonight.

Atlanta got on the board first with a pair of doubles to start the bottom of the third inning, by Mike Yastrzemski and Acuña to put the home team up 1-0, and let the record show that I spelled Yastrzemski right without looking. The next batter, Drake Baldwin, hit a dribbler up the first-base line; Mize fielded the ball and tossed underhand to first for the out, and he came up limping, favouring his right leg, and that was it for Mize; it was later reported that he had some “right groin tightness.”

Advertisement

View Link

Brant Hurter, who’s been used as a multi-inning reliever, came on for Mize and gave up a sacrifice-fly liner to score Acuña for a 2-0 lead.

Dillon Dingler managed the first Tiger hit with one out in the fourth, despite getting three on base before that via the base-on-balls. Alas, Dingler was stranded there after Riley Greene flew out and Torkelson struck out.

Hao-Yu Lee started the fifth with a double, and Javier Báez hit a grounder to shortstop. The throw to first was high, and Báez figured he could get underneath a tag by sliding into first base — which is never a good idea, kids — and ended up twisting his right ankle. He had to be taken off the field on a cart, but if you can have a little hope here, he was seen wiggling and moving his ankle around while on the cart.

Advertisement

View Link

(I don’t want to have to point this out, but… that belt of Báez looks a little too Zubaz-ish for my liking. IYKYK.)

After Gleyber Torres walked, McGonigle hit a long fly ball to right, but it was caught halfway up the wall for the third out and the threat was extinguished.

Pérez, whose pitch count was pushed up by a few long at-bats, was out after five innings and Didier Fuentes, a young right-hander from Colombia, took over and he had his slider working overtime, scattering a Greene walk harmlessly amid three quick outs. The Tigers struck out less than the Braves in this one, and hit the ball pretty solidly for the most part, but they neglected to hit them where they ain’t.

Advertisement

Burch Smith took over for Hurter to start the sixth, facing the heart of the order. He got Matt Olson to strike out swinging, and after walking Ozzie Albies, he got Michael Harris II to ground into an inning-ending double play. Smith carried on into the seventh, and with two outs he gave up a double to Mauricio Dubón, who scored on a Yastrzemski single just over Torres’ glove to make it 3-0. But then Chris Fetter paid Smith a visit, whispered some sweet nothings into Smith’s ear, and he struck out Acuña on three pitches.

In the top of the eighth McGonigle singled and Dingler doubled, putting runners on second and third with two outs and bringing Greene to the plate as the tying run. Alas, Greene struck out looking on a pitch that barely nicked the corner of the strike zone, and the inning was over.

Tyler Holton relieved Smith in the bottom of the eighth, and the Georgians tacked-on a pair of runs but-quick: with one out Olson doubled and Albies smacked a fat changeup over the fence for a 5-0 lead.

Torkelson came up first in the ninth inning for one last chance to extend his home run-hitting streak, but he grounded out to third; fun while it lasted. After Colt Keith singled, Wenceel Pérez hit his second home run of the year to get the Tigers on the board, but that would be the final scoring action of the game.

Advertisement

Final score: Atlanta 5, Detroit 2

Notes and Numbers

• How about that Spencer Torkelson fellow? Five straight games with a home run last week, and still didn’t win American League Player of the Week. That honour went to the A’s Carlos Cortes who went 13-for-24 with three dingers, which is fine, I guess. That Torkelson: he don’t get no respect, I’ll tell ya.

• After Sunday’s game, the Tigers as a team had the third-highest OPS (and OPS+) in the American League. Detroit’s OPS was .750, with an OPS+ of 106; if you don’t like anything related to OPS, the Tigers were fourth in batting average (.253; league-average is .239, which still boggles my mind).

• First Alex Cora in Boston, then Rob Thomson in Philadelphia: managers are getting fired left, right and centre! Who do you have next on your list?

• On this day in 1900, Dutch astonomer Jan Oort was born. He’s probably most famous for lending his name to the Oort Cloud, the spherical repository of tiny, icy bodies past the Kuiper Belt that most likely is the source of comets. But an argument could be made that his calculations regarding the rotation of the Milky Way, and the conclusion that there must be a lot of unseen (i.e., “dark”) matter kicking around, was the most important in the broader science of cosmology.