Sean Payton Is Calling the Shots (and Plays) and More Main Characters for Week 5
Oct 9, 2026 · 1h 6m · take 16 of 30
- Lions–Cardinals goes over on points and yards.
“I would take whatever the overs are on everything, on yards, on points, on everything”
Lions won 45-21 on Oct 11, 2026 (66 combined points) against a 54.5 total. Combined yardage was about 739 (412 DET, 327 ARI), but no yards line was found to grade against.
- Source: ESPN ↗ Lions 45-21 Cardinals (Oct 11, 2026) Final Score · Oct 11, 2026
In context
PelisseroMy week five
Gilmain character is Lions defensive coordinator,
GilKelvin Shepard. Now, this isn't the sexiest game by any means. It's the Lions and the Cardinals. The Lions are favored by five and a half points.
GilI would take whatever the overs are on everything, on yards, on points, on everything, because this seems like a game where the Cardinals are going to kind of put up some big numbers against the defense. But the reason he's a main character is because he caught a couple people by surprise this week in like the midweek press conferences where, you know, they were asking decent questions.
GilThe Lions defense has been very disappointing, to say the least. You know, they rank at the bottom of the league in almost everything defensively, except, you know, yards rushed against. They're like middle of the pack there, but like yards in the air, they're last in the league. Points per game, yards again, all of that there at the bottom.
GilSo they were asking him schematically. this is the reporters, they were asking him about, you know, the risk reward when it comes to blitzing and what they can do schematically to kind of change things and make things more effective against them. And he just very bluntly said, those were the right calls. And then he said that two or three more times, those are the right calls.
GilAnd then, you know, obviously that begged to follow up, which was, well, Bryce went eight for nine against the blints. Like, is there a disconnect between the calls and the execution? Like what's going on there? To which he said, Those are private conversations that we have in -house, but those were the right calls.
From the episode transcript around 00:45:45. Speaker names are recognized by voice.

DET
ARI
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