Sean Payton Is Calling the Shots (and Plays) and More Main Characters for Week 5

PelisseroHe believes in him as a young coach. You remember the stuff from Hard Knocks years ago when Kelvin was telling the story about it. He said, should I cut off my dreads? And Dan said, no, like that's who you are.

PelisseroThere's a culture in Detroit of the former players and the way that they interact with players can be a little different. And when you're listening to those Kelvin Shepard quotes, especially the like those were the right calls.

PelisseroI don't know that a coordinator who didn't play could say that stuff and it would hit quite right. And clearly with a lot of people, it didn't hit quite right from Kelvin Shepard either. But like his message is not to us. It's not to the media. He's messaging his players. And if that's what he is telling them is like, these are the correct calls we have to execute.

PelisseroI do think that it lands a little bit differently, but the results are the results. It doesn't sound like Brian Branch will be back this week. That's going to make a huge difference. It makes sense. He just started practicing. They got the buys. They can buy him an extra couple of weeks. When he comes back, I do think that that makes an impact.

PelisseroMaybe there's some things out there in the trade market that Brad Holmes potentially can get done to shore up the secondary. But that's been the biggest weakness when your front's getting after people and you're not doing anything on the back end to support them. Everybody involved gets frustrated. They've been really good. They really have on offense this season.

PelisseroDrew Petsing, another new offensive coordinator there, he's done a good job. The defense is not good enough. The expectations are raised in Detroit to such a degree that Dan Campbell, you know, is willing to make those tough decisions to make sure that he is meeting them. So you go all the way back to his first year.

PelisseroHe pulled play calling duties from Anthony Lynn and took them over himself. And that's when Ben Johnson kind of started sliding in the mix. Last year it was with John Morton before Dan took over. You're right. He's not going to take over the defensive play calling duties, but I could see him trying to punch some different buttons out of necessity.