The Detroit Lions allowed over 400 yards of total offense to the Buffalo Bills in a 41-31 Thursday night loss that also included a key injury to secondary depth piece Avonte Maddox. Doom and gloom followed the game with pundits including Stephen A. Smith ripping the Lions' performance.

On Friday, ESPN's Ian Rapoport took a more patient approach with defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard's unit, joining The Pat McAfee Show to share his take on why the Lions have a good chance to pull it all together.

“I would say, Kelvin Sheppard is a really good young, respected defensive coordinator, and my guess is, the Lions are gonna be fine,” Rapoport said. “But what I think you see early on this year, and the Cowboys are kinda going through it as well, even the Texans, who are awesome, and I think is going to be one of the best defenses in the NFL, Week 1 looked a little different.

“You know, you haven't tackled a lot, a lot of coordinators put a lot on the plate of a lot of these young players and, you get into Week 1 or Week 2, some can handle it, some cannot. And then some others have to face Josh Allen, which, when you have busts in the secondary, which is what it looks like, who knows, that doesn't help either. I expect the Lions to kind of get it together,” Rapoport concluded about coach Dan Campbell's team.

Sheppard, Campbell and the Lions have time to rest and digest what happened with the Jets coming to Detroit on September 27. The Lions need star safeties Brian Branch and Kerby Joseph back in the worst way, but there's plenty more they can do to improve their performance while they wait for their returns.