Getty Dan Orlovsky and Matthew Stafford share notes during a 2015 game.
It hasn’t been a great bye week for Detroit Lions coach Matt Patricia coming off a frustrating loss to the New Orleans Saints on Sunday.
The court of public opinion has turned decisively against the embattled coach, and one person that continues to take their shots at the boss is ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky.
Orlovsky already unloaded once on Patricia, and when the chance came to question the coach more, he continued to go in on Patricia more on Tuesday. This time, Orlovsky explained how he thinks the coach has failed after taking over the Lions. It has to do with Patricia not delivering on his end of the bargain in terms of winning big games, which is why he was brought to town.
Orlovsky said:
“He says that there’s a lot of work to get done when he got to Detroit. My question is, what was the work? Was it rebuilding the roster? No, that roster was healthy. Was it becoming a consistent winner? No, Jim Caldwell won 36 games, tied for the most ever in the history of the Lions organization. Was it rebuilding the culture of the locker room? No, I was there, I was in it every single day. It was probably the best culture locker room wise I had been in my 12 career. Was it rebuilding the image in the community? Nope, that community loved that head coach and football team. So what was the work that you say needed to get done? If you’re going to tell me that the work was to win the games that were big game versus the teams that were winners and win the big division championships, fine, I’ll give you that. You failed at that. The truth is, if that’s the work, you failed at that. Then don’t start deflecting questions saying ‘I’m only going to talk about now.’ Don’t ask your players to be accountable to themselves if you can’t do that as a head coach.”
Patricia, presumably, was brought in to help with these elements but so far has not gotten the team into the playoffs or close to a division title much less win one.
For his part, Orlovsky is right when it comes to his critiques. Patricia was hired to win big games and he has failed at that thus far. There’s few ways to disagree with that given his 10-25-1 record.
Dan Orlovsky Unloaded on Matt Patricia
Orlovsky is not pleased with how things have gone under Patricia’s watch. Speaking on Monday morning on Keyshawn, JWill & Zubin after an ugly loss against the New Orleans Saints, Orlovsky spoke openly about the end of Jim Caldwell’s tenure with the Lions and what’s happened so far under Patricia and let the Detroit coach have a major piece of his mind.
“To come in and say that you had a lot of work to do is completely false. It’s a bunch of trash!”
Former Lions QB @danorlovsky7 RIPPED head coach Matt Patricia for his post-game comments about what the team was like that he inherited from Jim Caldwell. #KJZ
Here’s Orlovsky’s take:
“First of all, we were 11-5 in 2014, we were a really good football team. 2015 we go 7-9, it’s because we turned the football over, but the last 8 games we were 7-1. It flipped our season around. The next 2 years we were 9-7 and I believe in Week 17 we were playing Green Bay for the division. To come in and say you had a lot of work to do, is completely false. It’s a bunch of trash. Because that wasn’t the case in Detroit. We were a good football team, Matthew Stafford was playing as good as he has in his career, that was because of coach Caldwell. We were an organization that was ascending. He was building. The culture was amazing, the culture was fantastic. You had a winning record in 3 of your 4 years, the coach was great, the quarterback was playing really good football. For him to come in and say there was a lot of work to be done was a bunch of trash. Second of all, you know what coach Caldwell wasn’t? A finger pointer. It’s wrong. It’s false. For (Patricia) to go and say, at 10-25, ‘well before I got here it was bad.’ Here’s the thing coach, no it wasn’t. We have eyewitness accounts of it not being bad. It was actually really good. It was a great place to be, a great place to work. We loved playing for coach Caldwell and it was a good football team. Was it great? No. Here’s the thing. When he was hired, the comment was we need to take the next step as an organization. It was built for growth, not regression. And they have regressed massively.”
Orlovsky is right. While the Lions may not have been elite under Caldwell, they seemed primed to take the next step following his departure, and things have gotten markedly worse. That’s a black eye for Patricia and his staff, who have had trouble getting their program on the ground and running successfully in Detroit when the team looked primed to be able to jump forward.
While Caldwell’s Lions struggled in plenty of ways, it’s getting hard to argue that the team was never as bad or as ill-prepared as they look under Patricia. That’s bad news for the coach and his future, especially considering his potentially former status as a defensive guru.
Radio Host: Matt Patricia ‘Turning Into a Clown’
It’s also not just former players giving it to Patricia left and right, national radio hosts are as well. Recently, Zach Gelb of CBS Sports had a particularly strong takedown of Patricia the boss and leader. As Gelb said, the coach has no reason to be blaming anyone else for what has happened in Detroit thus far under his watch, given he was brought in to be part of the solution and hasn’t gotten the job done.
Jim Caldwell had 36 wins in 4 years with the Lions and Matt Patricia is driving the #Lions back into the ground.
Gelb said:
“You can say ‘we took over a tough situation, there was a lot of work to do.’ The guy that was before you in Jim Caldwell, he had 36 wins in 4 years. You weren’t taking over a 2-14 team. You weren’t taking over an 0-16 team. The reason you were brought in was the organization thought Jim Caldwell was a good coach. They wanted you to take the next step. It wasn’t as if you were taking over a franchise that was gutted and had nothing. This guy, he’s another person who gets away from New England, tries to be Bill Belichick but doesn’t back it up on the scoreboard. You go from a guy in Jim Caldwell who wasn’t the greatest coach. He had 36 wins in 4 years. Matt Patricia, in year 3, has 10 wins with that franchise. Jim Caldwell made it through 4 years, Matt Patricia, I’m not sure he makes it through year 3. If I’m running the Lions organization, there’s no way I’m bringing him back for a 4th year. This guy, I know he wore that Roger Goodell clown shirt, but he’s turned into a clown. Your post game press conferences are embarrassing. Lions fans, they don’t do a lot of winning, they had something that was working with Jim Caldwell and they went to Matt Patricia and he has run this thing right to the ground.”
Patricia, for his part, has tried to clarify his comments from Sunday and his explanation was that he is constantly saying the team has lots of work to do in all aspects. Whether or not anyone buys that is hard to say, but Patricia did take plenty of heat after the implication that he had to work a major rebuild in Detroit that still isn’t finished.
Clearly, several people from the outside don’t seem to believe in the coach being able to turn things around or his explanations as to why it hasn’t yet happened. Orlovsky continues to let Patricia have it for his shortcomings as a boss.
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