Lions' defense features a bunch of new faces

Allen Park -- A year ago, linebacker Julian Peterson was one of the new faces in the crowd in the Lions' locker room.

Now? He's practically the team historian on defense, where only six of the 25 players from last year's opening-week roster -- and just two (take a bow, Cliff Avril and Andre Fluellen) from the dark ages of 2008 -- remain.

Peterson, an 11th-year pro acquired from Seattle in March 2009, couldn't help but shake his head when he heard the final count Monday after practice: A half-dozen holdovers?

"Wow. That's crazy." said Peterson, who, quite frankly, figured he wouldn't be around for this roll call, either, due in part to his $7.5 million salary.

"I didn't expect to be one of those survivors," Peterson added with a laugh. "But I'm here now."

Here today, gone tomorrow. That has been the theme for the Lions' league-worst defense the last couple of years, as a new regime came in with brooms and dustpans and plans to make sweeping changes.

But if you thought this "Extreme Makeover: Lions Edition" would be done quickly, or painlessly, think again.

Last year, new general manager Martin Mayhew's task was to scrape the walls and rip out the shag carpeting left behind by Matt Millen. This spring, Mayhew and second-year head coach Jim Schwartz put in new windows, refinished the floors and rolled on the primer. And chances are, it's going to need a few coats of paint.

A day after the latest roster purge was completed, I asked Peterson what message had been sent by team management in the last 18 months.

"That no one's safe," he said. "They have a vision of what type of team and what type of characters and what type of talent they want in here."

Talent search

Obviously, that talent wasn't anywhere to be found when Schwartz arrived 18 months ago. And just as clearly, the coaches could see there wasn't much to be salvaged from last year's patchwork unit.

No surprise, then, that eight of the Lions' 11 starters on defense when they kick off their season at Chicago on Sunday will be new from Week 1 of last season.

"I mean, for good reason," Schwartz said. "I think that what you saw is us build around a couple young players: Louis Delmas (and) DeAndre Levy. You saw us go out and retool the defensive line -- draft Ndamukong Suh high, and trade for Corey Williams, and bring in Kyle Vanden Bosch. You know, there needed to be turnover.

"But I think that we had a couple things that we're relying on, that we can hang our hat on. If you're going to retool, if you're going to rebuild, you need to hang your hat on something, and we chose to hang our hat on those guys."

For now, though they won't admit it publicly, the Lions have chosen to hang their hat on their offense, where most of the pieces appear to be in place. There are some key new starters -- Jahvid Best, Nate Burleson, Tony Scheffler and Rob Sims -- but 17 of the 25 offensive players on the Week 1 roster a year ago are still around.

On defense, they still need name tags in practice. Again, that's hardly unexpected.

"Not at all," said Delmas, who is the last man standing from the 2009 secondary -- everybody else got axed. "Because you have to remember, I played with, what, four or five (different) safeties last year? So I never try to get well-acquainted with faces."

He laughed and added, half-jokingly, "Don't need your name, just the number. Because I know the numbers aren't going anywhere, but the faces will."

Youth is served

But while youth is the prevailing theme -- the average age of the defensive starters (26.1 years) dropped two full years this season -- there's no guarantee newer is better. For now, it's only different, at least among the linebackers and in the secondary. (The revamped front four is drastically improved, without question.)

Sure, the talent's a better fit for the scheme, with faster, more aggressive players in the secondary and better size at linebacker.

The attitude is better, too, or it would appear, with defensive coordinator Gunther Cunningham having unloaded some of the "characters" and "knuckleheads" -- his words, not mine -- that kept him up at night and kept him cursing on the practice field.

Give it a few weeks, though, and we'll see if he's feeling any better about this new group. Young and hungry can only take you so far in this league.

"Every year is a new year, every game is a new game," said cornerback Jonathan Wade, half of the Lions' new starting cornerback tandem. "As long as we keep turning the page and going forward, we'll be OK."

If not, they'll likely be history.

Out with the old, in with the new

Only six of 25 defensive players from the Lions' season-opening roster in 2009 remain on the current roster: Here's a look at the Week 1 depth chart from both years:

2009

2010

*Dizon remains on injured reserve

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