Dan Campbell: I'm not talking about firing Kelvin Sheppard

Published October 5, 2026 06:39 AM The Lions defense was unimpressive in the first three weeks of the 2026 season and things didn’t get any better in Sunday night’s loss to the Panthers. Carolina rolled up 445 yards in a 32-26 win that marked the third time in four weeks that the Lions allowed at least 30 points to their opponents. It’s the first time that they’ve done that in the first four weeks of a season since they went 0-16 in 2008 and that unsurprisingly made potential changes the focus of head coach Dan Campbell’s postgame press conference. Campbell was specifically asked about whether he is considering firing defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard. Campbell said he believes that the team has to find ways to improve with what’s already in house. “I’m not talking about all that,” Campbell said. “I’m talking about getting better right now with what we got and that’s what we’re going do. We’re going to find a way to get better with what we got.”Campbell said that the Lions have “tweaked” things each week and that there are still other things to address as the Lions “exhaust everything here” in an attempt to find a way to improve on defense. Some of those tweaks will need to start paying off soon if Campbell wants to avoid shaking up his staff.