Bill Belichick does something with his defensive back assignments that I think would help the Lions overcome their roster deficiencies back there.

Basically, Bill would assign his BEST corner to cover the opponent's SECOND best receiver. He would then use CB 2 and a SAFETY to bracket (high-low) the opponent's best receiver.

Imagine we're playing the Vikings.

Instead of asking Reed to cover Jefferson (impossible), we put Reed on Addison. Reed can dominate Addison.

Jefferson we cover with Rock (CB 2) and Branch (SS) or Branch (NB) and either safety. Because Branch can play CB, NB, or S, we can confuse the defense as to what Jefferson's coverage will be on every single play.

Jefferson is always double covered and Addison is losing 9/10 snaps to Reed. And Rock can get in his f'in face because he knows he has Branch backing him up on JJ.

This set-up works for the teams without 2 elite receivers.

We'd need to do something different for 2-elite-WR teams like the Rams. (I bet we could force them to feed one WR and most teams won't) but IDK.

Either way, we'd have to do something crazy against double elite WR teams because the teams with 2 elite receivers also have elite players across the offense.

But for most other teams, I think the Belichick coverage approach would give the guys we have a shot at stopping most teams at least some of the time.

What do you guys think?