Read the full transcript from OC Bobby Slowik's media availability on November 5, 2026.

Correct me if I'm wrong, I think you went up-tempo in one series. Have you done it you think – it was very briefly. It was just a couple plays where I don't know if it was a sugar huddle or what it was, but it was an up-tempo approach for a couple of plays. I guess, have you thought of doing it more? And if not, how much is just wanting to protect your defense in terms of not having them on the field long?

Bobby Slowik: Yeah, I think it's always a give and a take, right? What we're trying to do from an offensive perspective, obviously we want to move the ball, but we also want to do things that we think are the best for the team. Now, the one thing I'll say about going up-tempo is usually you do that when you think you can put your guys in a very predictable situation. And the more predictable your tempo becomes, usually the less predictable situations we're putting them in. Just talking in my history, I recall there's been a game I went into as a coordinator like, man, this has been really good for us. We're going to live in this this game. That went bad real fast, because all of a sudden you start getting different looks that you're not always planning for. Usually when you're going up-tempo and on the ball, it's a smaller menu that you're choosing from. I'm bouncing around on you here, but there's a lot of reasons and thoughts for why you want to do it and when you want to do it. I usually go to, okay, is this a time in the game or a moment in the game where I feel like if we go on the ball right now, we know what we're going to get and we're going to be able to take advantage of that in the run and the pass game. Really that kind of goes even to like two-minute. A lot of people use two-minute like it's very similar to a midgame, on the ball situation, but it's really not. Like two-minute are usually pretty specific offensive calls and pretty specific defensive calls, and it usually plays along the same lines. When it's predictable, everything's good. And as soon as it starts getting unpredictable and you start getting unaccounted for situations, then from a scheme standpoint, it gets pretty hard. But long story short, it's always something we're talking about. It's always something we want up every game if we can. Can I use it more, yeah. Can I use it less, yeah. You know what I mean? Just depending on…

There's just no way of knowing if Malik would be better or your offense would be better playing up-tempo if you don't use it. I guess you could judge it in practice, but is that something which you have a handle on? Would we be better if we played faster?

Bobby Slowik: Yeah, we feel pretty good with where we're at and how we play right now. I wouldn't really foresee that drastically changing, as we keep going through the course of the season.

I just have one final on the same issue. I know Logan Ryan on the CBS broadcast made a big deal about Malik and the offense taking a lot of time on the possession, I think at the eight or seven minute mark. Why was it done at that deliberate pace and not faster?

Bobby Slowik: In which part of the game? You talking about going into half or in the fourth quarter?

Prior to the Coleman touchdown.

Bobby Slowik: It's one of those things I had to learn this as a play caller in the NFL. I'd been around Kyle [Shanahan] doing it for a while, and I remember when I was with Kyle early on, like there were sometimes I was in the box and I'm just like, why aren't we going? Like I'm freaking out, you know what I mean? It's usually not beneficial to you in the NFL. You have an idea of where your threshold is in the fourth quarter of like, okay, we got to go and we got to go now, but I mean, I've been a part of a defensive NFL team where we gave up 21 points in like 2 minutes. You can catch lightning in a bottle fast, but as soon as you start going too fast and you panic, it creates some issues and with six minutes left in the game when you're only down 10 or 11, that's not panic time yet. That's time to make sure we go get points. That's really the biggest thing that I learned just from the people I've been with is when it gets down to crunch time and you're still talking a two-score game late in the game, the most important thing that needs to happen is you need to get points. I thought we did that. We started driving down the field. I think we got down into field goal range, something around four-ish minutes left or something like that, and then unfortunately, we just didn't get the points. But that really was ultimately the goal.

How much attention do you pay to the yards before contact stat?

Bobby Slowik: I mean, to be perfectly honest with you, not a lot. It was brought to my attention three weeks ago, I didn't even know what it was. I've looked at it more now that I know what it is, but it doesn't – a lot of what we see, the stats just validate what you see. You can spin stats in so many different ways, depending on what kind of story you want to paint.We kind of do it all the time as coaches when we're going into meetings. At the end of the day, all you're trying to really do is what's the tape say and what's that validate? And right now, I would say it validates that we're running the ball and blocking really well, and then I would say the stats validate that. I think this last week was probably our first game I thought there was more out there for us and we could have blocked better. But by and large, I'm there with the clicker in my hand.

Speaking of stats, you have 5 receivers over 30 yards, nobody over 46 though. What does that tell you? Is that healthy? I mean, I'm sure you'd like to have 100-yard receiver, but is that a healthy mix?

Bobby Slowik: Yeah, I always think it's good to spread the ball around. Anytime that you can really distribute the ball to a lot of different guys, I think that's a lot harder on the defense than when you have one guy that just all of a sudden, he goes for 100 yards. They usually then know what they have to defend and take away. Doesn't mean they can, but it helps them just understand what it is they have to do. Where when you start distributing it and the quarterback's confident enough to really get the ball distributed everywhere, that gets really hard to stop really fast consistently. That's the one thing for us we've been working on offense is we need to help our consistency. I thought last game we had too many three-and-outs, which is a huge deal to me that we need to avoid, and a lot of that goes with consistency of execution, consistency of play calling, consistency of making sure we're doing the right thing in the pass game, distributing the ball to the right place and our guys being in the right place. So yeah, that's really important to me. When we have a lot of targets to different people, it usually means we're getting across our progressions pretty good.

It seemed like Malik was passing up some opportunities to run last game. What were you seeing in that regard and why was that if so?

Bobby Slowik: I think last week, it was a little easier to see some of them on film than I think it was live in the moment of the game. The one thing I think that they do a really good job of is they mix up the rushes. They're a really good game team. They mix up how they game, where they game, and where the open windows are for you in the pass game. It can look glaring sometimes when you're just watching strictly like to see if anyone can run. It's not as easy when you're looking at No. 1, No. 2, No. 3 down the field to then recognize, oh man, I got a window. That's something we're working o, we're training on, and I know Malik's training on. But yeah, we had some opps last week that we kind of left out there. We know that and we're working towards making sure we take advantage of those.

The Lions defense has been improving in points allowed per average, like it was three weeks ago it was around 32 points per game, now that dropped to 17.7. They just beat the last undefeated team in the NFL. So what have you seen about their defense that they've been doing well and how you can attack that?

Bobby Slowik: I would say when you watch their film, like the last three weeks has been really good football on defense. I think early in the year they had some games that got away from them. They didn't play their best on defense, you could tell they, just like what happens to everybody, they had some mistakes or somebody just gives up a big play. It was kind of a little bit of a rollercoaster when you watch early in the year and I felt like Shep (Kelvin Sheppard) and Detroit's done a really good job the last three weeks kind of tightening up what they do, really honing in on what they do. They've gone out and they've played the last three weeks at a really high level. And I mean, they got a really good front. I feel like I say that every week. I feel like every week, we're playing a really good front. But obviously they got Hutch, their two interior guys are really good. They're tough and they're playing towards that strength right now. So just like every week has been up to this, it's going to be a really good test for us. It's a really good test of our mentality, our physicality, because that's how they play.

Speaking of their defense, they're last in pass defense and maybe No. 4 in sacks or something like that. What does that tell you about how the front works with the back, and does it tell you if we just give Malik Willis some time, he will have some opps?

Bobby Slowik: Yeah, I was really interested in that. That's one stat I did see early in the week and then I started watching the film and it didn't quite match what I thought I was going to see. Again, like early in the year, I think there were some windows, there were some opps, there were some things people took advantage of. Really over the course of the season, as the season's gone on, a lot of that is shored up. But you see an awful lot of teams playing from multiple scores behind, which is usually going to up the pass percentage in the yards you gain and all that stuff. From what I see on tape, like every week, I think we got a good scheme. I think we got a good approach. I think we got a good plan. I think our players are excited for this one. But that's not to be confused with – like this is going to be a tough one for us. We got to go out, we got to battle, and we're going to fight.

How do you get the running game back on track?

Bobby Slowik: Yeah, really just execution. I thought New England did a good job. They varied up a few looks. We kind of adjusted as we went through the game, and into the fourth quarter, we started to run the ball a little bit better there. But they did a good job combined with us maybe not necessarily playing as well as we had up to this point last week. I didn't think in the run game we quite played with the conviction and the aggression that we had in weeks before. So this week's been a lot of talk about, okay, let's get that back. What do we got to do scheme wise to still put you guys in good positions, but what do we got to do to get this attitude, this mentality back? I think our guys are 100% on board with that, and so far through two days of practice, we're pleased with where we're at.

From having to go a game without him, what was the impact of not having Kadyn Proctor out there?

Bobby Slowik: Yeah, he's just a good player. Any time you miss a good player and he's not available in the game, it just obviously limits what you're able to do. I think Kingston, it started off a little slow really for everybody across the board, I thought we started slow. But King, as the game went on, I thought he kind of fell into a rhythm and he started playing better. Especially in the second half I thought he really honed into what he needed to do, buy and large. Still when Proct's out there, you can feel Proctor's presence out there on most every play. He's just a massive guy who can move, he displaces people. He's putting defensive tackles five, six yards down the field. He caps off at the end of plays. We throw the ball 10 yards down the field for a 30-yard explosive and next thing you know, Proctor's showing up on the screen and everyone's like 'where'd he come from.' You know what I mean? He just gives everybody a lot of energy when he's out there, and that's not even including what you can do with him scheme wise.

You guys matched up against the Lions during joint practices last year. What do you remember about that experience that will help you on Sunday?

Bobby Slowik: We had two practices against them. I think it's interesting when you think back to it, I'm sure they're kind of thinking that same, our offense is different and evolved a little bit, their defense has evolved quite a bit from what it was in those joint practices. You go through a full season and then the beginning of a second season, it's natural that the little wrinkles that you had, they all change. Some of that's personnel dependent, some of that maybe is scheme dependent by them. I thought it was good for us and will be good for us again to play just that style of, I guess you could say attitude, demeanor that they play with, tone that they play with. Because it's the same way we want to play and we believe in playing. Just like last week, I thought last week we played a team that believes in playing the way we do. It'll be the same this week, and I think any time you're able to go against that, it's the  old saying iron sharpens iron, so you come out of that better than you went into it.

With regard to the INT that bounced off DaQuan Jones helmet, what comment from Wills afterwards was that there was really nothing he could do about that. In general, I wouldn't ask you to review every pass that he's had that's been knocked down. But in general, is there anything that he could be doing better to try to eliminate off a body part of someone or being deflected by defensive linemen?

Bobby Slowik: Yeah, that one was a little unusual because he got hit right in the back around the arm area right when he was letting it go, which can affect more than you think it can. That being said, a coach is always going to find something. You're always going to just pick apart and find something to be like, 'maybe, you could have. I think we should have,' so we have those conversations like all the time. It's something he knows. Nobody wants to have a ball ricochet off a defensive tackle and then wind up as an interception, that stinks for the quarterback. He's been doing a great job of just being willing to take whatever he can get, try to incorporate it into what we do and keep working on it, keep grinding on it, see if we can get it to show up on Sundays. Then there's some that are fluke situations that you can't quite handle and you just got to be willing to say that's out of my control and I can only control what I can control and let me go out and let me rip the next one.

You guys have faced a lot of good pass rushers. What are some of the things you want to be mindful of game planning against Aidan Hutchinson?

Bobby Slowik: Yeah, I think it'd probably be easier for us if it wasn't just Aidan. But McNeill's one of the better interior rushers we're going to play this year. They got 91's [Tyleik Williams] a really good player. So it's more than just him, but specifically as it pertains to the edge, we're going to have to make sure in protection that we're doing a good job helping. Might not always be with a chip or a crack, but you can help with slides, you can help with different ways of influencing the guys. A large part of what we're doing, we're making sure that somehow, some way our tackles feel like they're not on islands all day, every day. And then on top of that, you balance that out with scheme. Like eventually you're going to have to block the guy one-on-one, but can we get rid of the ball fast? Can we have some screens that offset it? Can we do some runs that offset it? Which I think we've done a good job of through the course of the year in passing situation, we've hit some runs that have slowed down some rushes. It's really just continuing to change it up, and when you have to go back and you got to see it, you got to throw, we got to make sure that we're helping our tackles out.

Is Kaytron Allen close to being able to contribute from scrimmage? We saw he had a couple of nice plays on special teams last week, but where is he as far as contributing from scrimmage?

Bobby Slowik: Yeah, he's progressing. It's been cool to see him in practice every week, get a little more comfortable with what we do and watch him. I mean, he works his tail off when he gets a chance on scout team and when he's with us. I thought it was really awesome to see him on special teams last week make two big plays. I always remember, I wasn't quite old enough at the time to see it live, but I always remember the Terrell Davis story in a preseason game on special teams where he goes down and he just makes a waylay tackle, and all of a sudden next thing you know, he gets his carries and he gets his opp and then he goes from there, so I never discount any of that stuff. I think the fact that he made the plays he did in special teams is really cool. And obviously if he continues playing like that, then you want to see more of that player to see what else he has. Right now, I would just say he's progressing.