Getty Matt Patricia during a game against the Vikings.
The Detroit Lions have made the move to deal Darius Slay, and the repercussions of that decision have reverberated for a few days in the court of public opinion.
It seems everyone has a take on what the Lions have done with Slay, and their former quarterback Dan Orlovsky thinks that the problem was actually on the end of Matt Patricia and not necessarily Slay himself. Following the trade of Slay to the Philadelphia Eagles, Orlovsky sounded off on ESPN and said that the team’s problem might be more related to Patricia as head coach rather than any players.
Here’s a look at what Orlovsky had to say:
“I think the Lions organization has a problem and it starts with their head coach,” @danorlovsky7 said on ESPN.
More Dan Orlovsky (on ESPN) on the Matt Patricia story Darius Slay told:
“When you haven’t warranted that type of clout, and you go into that meeting room… players look around and say, ‘Why is he talking to one of our leaders?”
In addition to what’s going on within the team, Orlovsky admitted he will always root for the Lions, but said the team must start to nail all of their draft picks this coming season, and there is very little exception.
I love the @Lions because they gave me my start. And I will always root for their success, and I still have dear friends there….but man with the @_bigplayslay23 trade and the picks they have…they better nail every single draft pick. Every one.
Obviously, Orlovsky is beginning to lose patience with the Lions as much as several of their fans are.
Darius Slay Explains Relationship With Matt Patricia
After Slay was sent away to the Eagles, he stopped by WJR-760 AM and spoke about the experience. As expected, he held nothing back as it relates to his old team and his old boss Matt Patricia. It’s safe to say that Slay didn’t exactly have the best exit with the team that drafted him.
Slay and Patricia’s relationship was explored, and here’s some of the best takeaways from the interview.
Darius Slay on WJR: I wanted to stay for a minute, but I knew how me and Matt Patricia were and that wasn’t going to last long.
Slay said he disagrees with the coach on a lot of things. Said he was bothered by Patricia saying he wasn’t elite, only good.
Slay said the first year with Patricia was rough and destroyed their relationship, even though the second year was much better.
Slay said Matt Patricia told him he had no business working out with guys like Richard Sherman and Aqib Talib because those guys were elite and Slay was just good.
A few more specifics on that incident were provided by Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press, who explained in a piece that the dustup occurred during a team meeting in which Slay’s feelings were hurt by Patricia, and a comment he made.
“He told me in front of the whole team, in the team meeting room, showed clips of me in practice getting a ball caught on me or so in practice,” Slay said. “I posted a picture (of a wide receiver on social media), and he told me, stop sucking this man’s private. So I’m like, ‘Whoa.’ I’m like, ‘Hold up.’ Where I’m from, that don’t fly. Cause I wouldn’t say that to him. I wouldn’t say to him to stop you know what to Bill Belichick. I wouldn’t do that. That’s just not me as a man. That’s disrespectful to me and so from there on it was done with.”
In the same piece, Patricia responded to Slay’s comments and provided his side of the story:
“Over the last two seasons, Darius and I have had multiple conversations in private that I believed were constructive and satisfactory,” the statement read. “My discussions with athletes are confidential and I won’t comment on anything discussed with our players in a team meeting. I appreciate his hard work and wish he and his family all the success in Philadelphia.”
Obviously, the duo never saw eye to eye and couldn’t agree in the end, which is why the likelihood of a deal playing out was always strong. Everybody who paid attention realized that for some reason, things had gone south and the only real solution was a trade.
Everyone finally knows the reason, and now that it’s out, even former members of the team are beginning to turn on Patricia and company.
Matt Patricia’s Lions Tenure
Patricia came to the Lions fresh off success in New England in 2018, and struggled out of the gate to capture the attention of the locker room. A bumpy start paved the way to a more solid finish in 2018 with the team only winning six games, but defeating squads like the New England Patriots, Green Bay Packers and Carolina Panthers, which offered hope.
Patricia has helped the Lions stay in games for the most part in 2019, something which the team struggled with in 2018, but has not gotten them over the hump at closing. That’s perhaps his biggest wart so far as a boss, combined with a lousy defense that has not picked up the program whatsoever. Patricia might get more of a pass considering the absurd amount of injuries he’s dealt with, but it’s hard to ignore that in his tenure as coach, the Lions have had the same discipline problems plague them that always have through the years.
The bet was that both Patricia and Quinn get a mulligan on 2019 considering the rash of injuries that have set the team back, while also living with the understanding that 2020 is likely the make or break year for this group.
It might not be what Lions fans wanted to hear, but it always seemed like the likely outcome, which is now truth.
Now, the duo has to make the right decisions to get their program on the right track, and Orlovsky might be the latest to start losing patience.
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