Detroit Lions: Matt Patricia’s Running A Softer Training Camp

This time last year, all we heard out of the Detroit Lions training camp was all the running that was taking place. All the running the players were doing, all the running around and yelling Matt Patricia was doing, all the players running their mouths about both the two previous versions of running. All this had everyone running to conclusions about new head coach Matt Patricia and his grueling training camp. Running.

One of my favorite stories from Matt Patricia’s first season at Detroit Lions training camp was him bringing back a modified version of the famous ‘Oklahoma Drill.’ A drill that the NFL asked teams to stop running, Patricia ran it the first day they had pads on.

This year the stories out of camp seem to be quite the opposite, I haven’t seen one report or a player quote resembling anything close to last year’s nonstop narrative that Matt Patricia ran a grueling training camp. The three days that I attended, I saw only a handful of players doing disciplinary laps. The rest was standard conditioning, if not a little less than standard even.

I wasn’t the only one to notice either, a lot of the casual fans in attendance noticed and beat writers alike did too. Here’s a tweet from SB Nation’s ‘Pride of Detroit’;

You’ve also got a lot of big names and team leaders of this team that has had been sidelined due to conditioning, injury, and even rest. Big names like Matthew Stafford, Trey Flowers, Damon Harrison, Darius Slay, Mike Daniels, Da’Shawn Hand, Romeo Okwara & Devon Kennard have all missed a reasonable amount of time for various reasons.

Detroit Lions defenders Darius Slay and Damon Harrison went straight to the NFI list (non-football injury) after both of their public contract disputers earlier in the offseason and missing OTA and minicamp. I’m not going to speculate too much, but the coincidence is remarkable. Even with Slay returning to practice on Aug 2nd, neither of their injuries have been fully disclosed, but according to Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press;

"Matt Patricia said at the time the team intended to bring Slay and defensive tackle Damon Harrison along slowly after they skipped formal spring workouts in a contract dispute."

On Saturday and Sunday, you had Detroit Lions Quarterback Matthew Stafford take training camp practice days off for rest. Which made six days off in a row for the veteran QB, which is unheard of for Stafford, I would put a large amount of money on this is the most days off in a row he’s gotten since 2010 when he injured his shoulder. With Stafford not doing the walkthrough last Wednesday, not playing in the preseason game Thursday, the team off Friday, resting Saturday and Sunday practices, the team off Monday, Stafford didn’t return until Tuesday, six days rested.

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Mike Daniels has not taken part in any team drills since signing with the Detroit Lions back on July 26th. Daniels is recovering from a season-ending foot injury last year but says he’s ready to go in an interview with the NFL Network, reported by MLive.com;

"“I’m ready to go,” he said. “I’m ready to go. But like I said, it’s just a matter of being smart. I’ve been through plenty of camps in my career, and not saying I don’t want to get the work, which is why I’ll be out there next week, but it’s just being smart. As you get older, you have to be smart. You can’t just beat yourself into submission every day, which is what I prefer to do.”"

A’Shawn Robinson also missed the first few days of camp with an excused absence for a ‘personal matter.’ Kerryon Johnson also had an excused absence where we later learned it was to attend his brother’s wedding via social media. To be honest, I don’t have any stats on the percentage of players being excused from an NFL training camp for a wedding, but it’s not high.

Even coach Patricia himself has been forced to take it easy while recovering from an ACL injury. First two days he was riding the Allen Park golf cart, but by day three he got his hands on a much more appealing and practical ATV that looks straight out of the ‘cat’ cave.

I think Patricia being ‘day to day’ as he would say he has had the biggest effect, I’m sure there are coaching moments, real-time teaching and a million other things that I’m not even aware of that he’s not able to do from the ATV. That’s a huge loss, this is his show, and he can barely direct it from the ATV or on top of a cheerleaders pyramid of Gatorade coolers at Ford Field.

Having such leaders out on both your roster and coaching staff can have a considerable effect. From the competition, chemistry, to even the human element of getting too comfortable for some players, seeing their captain on the sideline while they’re doing conditioning drills or the head coach not as involved as he would be on foot.

But in my opinion, competition and chemistry are what’s missing the most in a situation like this. When almost your whole starting D-Line is out during training camp leading up preseason week one. That means your starting O-Line hasn’t practiced against starting level competition since last year, no wonder they looked behind the curve when the Patriots came to town.

When you tie everything together, this has been a less intense training camp with not as much contact when compared to last years. Is this all an overcorrection from last year? There were improvements to be made from Patricia’s first training camp as an NFL head coach, but if he’s ‘toning down’ training camp this year as an overcorrection from last year? I think he’s is going too far.