Lions DC Aaron Glenn hoping to remove bad taste from previous Seahawks matchups

Against Aaron Glenn’s defense, the Seattle Seahawks have scored 99 points in two games. The Detroit Lions defensive coordinator is hungry to rectify that on Sunday.

When Detroit Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn first faced the Seattle Seahawks in 2021, his team allowed 497 yards of offense and 51 points. The following year the two teams faced off again, and Seattle continued to assert their offense. This time, the Seahawks managed 555 yards of offense and 48 points.

Needless to say, Glenn hasn’t forgotten. And while he knows the Seahawks are going to be coming into Ford Field this week hungry after a disappointing 30-13 loss to the Los Angeles Rams, Glenn is plenty hungry to rectify the performances of the previous two matchups.

“I hear you guys talk about how they have a bad taste in their mouth, well hell, I’ve got one in my mouth too,” Glenn said. “We gave up 50 points damn near twice. So, our guys will be ready to play. They’ll be ready to play.”

Last week against the Kansas City Chiefs, the Lions defense started the season with a very promising performance, holding last year’s No. 1 offense to just 20 points and 316 yards of offense. They also scored a defensive touchdown and forced the Chiefs to go 0-for-7 on third-down conversions in the second half.

“I thought we were physical, that we were violent, especially in the secondary, and I thought we attacked the football,” Glenn said. “Now, we didn’t come away with as many balls (as) we wanted as far as interceptions and punchouts. We did get one. But to me, that’s what really showed up. I mean the stats are the stats, but like I tell our guys, if we do those things, if we understand that we do those things, those three things, man, the stats are going to take care of itself and those guys did that.”

Despite the slow start to the season, the Seahawks boast a lot of strong weapons on offense. Seattle has an impressive trio of receivers in DK Metcalf, Tyler Lockett, and rookie Jaxon Smith-Njigba, and while running back Kenneth Walker only carried the ball 12 times against the Rams, he turned that into 64 yards. That average of 5.3 yards per carry was the seventh-highest among all Week 1 running backs with at least 10 carries.

“He’s a really good back. He’s explosive,” Glenn said. “I’ll tell you these jump cuts that he’s able to make within that running game, I mean it’s pretty special. So, our guys know it’s a challenge.”

Seattle’s one Achilles heel this week may be their offensive line. Starting right tackle Abraham Lucas was placed on injured reserve this week and left tackle Charles Cross appears unlikely to play Sunday, as well. In response, Seattle signed 41-year-old Jason Peters to their practice squad this week, and he seems likely to be called up for this week’s game.

“You would think you give him a couple of weeks to get ready to go. I don’t know if we can afford to do that,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said this week. “We’ll see what happens here as we go one day at a time and work with him.”

Glenn isn’t the only one with some extra motivation for the Seahawks. Coach Dan Campbell kicked off the week with a reminder of the back-to-back losses in back-to-back years to Seattle.

“This team always presents problems,” Campbell said. “It’s been a thorn in our side for two years, and so we know what’s going to be coming in here. We’re going to assume the best out of them and they got after us pretty good last year—real good—so that’s something we won’t forget.”