Matt Patrica didn’t coach the Detroit Lions for long, but some would argue that the damage he did in a short amount of time was very significant to note. Some might even say the coach was in his position for too long.
Patricia was finally dismissed after last season, and that was huge news for Detroit fans who had grown weary of the boss’s antics on the sidelines and off. It’s possible, however, that keeping the coach for as long as the franchise did was a major mistake.
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Recently, Bleacher Report writer Chris Roling took a look at identifying every team’s biggest mistake in the last 5 years. As he wrote, when it comes to the Lions, the decision not to fire Patricia sooner takes the cake for the team given the damage the coach did in the short time he was around.
He wrote:
“Detroit Lions head coach Matt Patricia was on any reasonable hot-seat list after two seasons.
Patricia had the stigma of another Bill Belichick understudy from New England who floundered in new surroundings when he arrived in 2018. It also hurt that his predecessor David Caldwell had gone 9-7 two seasons in a row and even achieved 11-5 (2014) for a franchise that had otherwise reached the double-digit win mark once since 1995.
The Lions immediately face-planted under Patricia, regressing to 6-10 in 2018 and then even further to 3-12-1 in 2019. That apparently wasn’t enough for the Lions front office, so Patricia got to start 4-7 in 2020 before getting shown the door.
Detroit went on to finish 5-11, swapped Matthew Stafford for Jared Goff and doesn’t appear to have the juice necessary to right the ship quickly after grazing the iceberg.”
Whether the Lions can right the ship quickly or not is a matter of debate, but it’s easy to see how the decision to go all-in on Patricia cost the team in the short and long-term. The team wasted some of the best years of Matthew Stafford as well as other players spinning their wheels, and the Patricia move was a big reason the team could never get over the top.
The Lions moved on as of last November, and now, have completely turned the page on a new regime. That’s the only direction any folks should be looking in no matter what is written.
Dan Campbell’s Culture Called Ahead of Patricia’s
The good news for Lions fans? Help has arrived in the form of Dan Campbell, the team’s new boss. Even though he has only been on he field for a few months with the team, many already see the dividends of the Campbell move paying off.
Following the NFL Draft, ESPN’s Kevin Seifert proclaimed it as “fact” that the Lions had a fun draft, and said in their opinion, the team has finally injected some life and the right culture within the team in order to lead to some bigger winning down the line. A big reason is the team seems to be having fun again, which puts the new group already well ahead of their predecessors.
He wrote:
“From their aggressive celebration after drafting Sewell to defensive tackle Levi Onwuzurike’s profanity-laced declaration about the way he hits people at the line of scrimmage, it was physically impossible for Lions fans to avoid smiling at some point over the course of the weekend. When viewed in the context of new coach Dan Campbell’s stated desire to bite kneecaps, it’s pretty clear that the Lions won’t take themselves too seriously. They’ll have some energy, which is always the first building block in improving a team. They’re already ahead of where they were at the start of the Matt Patricia regime, which was cold and lifeless from the start.”
Cold and lifeless is a good way to describe the last regime, and it might not take much to be better than Patricia right off the bat. Still, it would be noteworthy if the Lions could get things turned around that fast for their future. Some see that playing out.
Patricia Had Failed Tenure With Lions
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. Those struggles never subsided in 2019 or 2020, and the coach was run out of town in embarrassing fashion after a total fail with the team.
Early in his career in Detroit, Patricia has helped the Lions stay in games for the most part but never helped get the team 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’s program was defined by disorder within the team, a fact that frustrated many fans as well as the organization.
Both Patricia and Quinn got a mulligan on 2019 considering the rash of injuries that set the team back, and 2020 always seemed to be the make or break year. Things broke. The duo was fired in November, with Patricia maintaining an ugly 13-29-1 mark with the Lions over three failed seasons.
Regardless of when it happened, the Lions at the very least made the move with Patricia.
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Lions Slammed for Making Critical Decision With Matt Patricia