The Detroit Lions ranked 22nd in pass defense last season, which should have sent the team into panic mode after losing starting cornerback Eric Wright to a five-year, $37.5 million contract from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
The Lions did not panic by trading for Asante Samuel, a player they nearly had a deal for last August, and will instead count on returning starter Chris Houston and young players Alphonso Smith, Aaron Berry and 2012 draft choices Dwight Bentley (third round), Chris Greenwood (fifth round) and Jonte Green (sixth round) to step up in place of Wright.
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"I don't know that I've ever really gone in saying, 'You want to have good competition,'" Schwartz said according to Carlos Monarrez of the Detroit Free Press. "What you really want is you want to have good players. If you have enough good players, you'll have competition, but I don't know we're really looking to say, 'We're trying to have competition.' We're trying to have good players, and I think we have a couple there."
Wright played in over 90 percent of the Lions' defensive snaps last season and losing him cannot be brushed off. That said, the pass defense wasn't nearly as bad as the passing yards allowed per game would indicate.
Over the first 10 games of the 2011 season, the Lions averaged 192.8 yards passing per game. In the final six games of the season, the Lions allowed an average of 317.2 yards per game. That final stretch of games including two meetings with the Green Bay Packers, a road game against the New Orleans Saints (sans Ndamukong Suh) and a San Diego Chargers offense that averaged over 275 yards per game on the season. In terms of passing yards per play, the Lions ranked seventh and when you adjust for opponent, which Football Outsiders does, the Lionshad the league's fourth-best pass defense. A good pass-rush can be pass defense's best friend, and as long as the Lions can put pressure on opposing quarterbacks, they will not need to panic when looking to add talent at the cornerback position.
