Counterpoint: Letting Matt Patricia go would be the right move for the Lions
Patricia makes way too many mistakes
It’s already become clear that Patricia struggles to make the right game management decisions, making conservative decisions that—rightly—draw ire. The New York Jets knew precisely what the Lions were going to call in their season opener in 2018. He called an infamous timeout which stopped what would have been a game-sealing touchdown play against Arizona set the Lions up to tie, routinely can’t manage his timeouts or the clock and his uber-conservative fourth-down decisions regularly put the team near the top of the Surrender Index.
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Mansur Shaheen of Pride of Detroit argues that Caldwell is a good defensive coach, but “an awful game manager:”
“Over the past two seasons,” Shaheen writes, “the team has been far too conservative, and it has cost them repeatedly. He also was horrible with clock management at the end of the half… Right now, Patricia is a defensive coordinator masquerading as a head coach. If the Lions want to compete anytime soon, then they will need a real head coach leading their team.”
Patricia is losing the locker room
Even after his very first game, it already seemed as though Patricia was losing the respect of his players due to an unnecessarily grueling training camp and an abundance of rules. He’s late to team meetings with regularity. The surprising trade of captain Quandre Diggs doesn’t add confidence to the idea that Patricia has a good relationship with his players, either.
“There wasn’t one incident that precipitated his trade to the Seattle Seahawks,” Dave Birkett wrote in the Free Press last week, “but former Detroit Lions safety Quandre Diggs said his strong personality is ultimately what led the Lions to ship him out of town.
‘I think it was more of just a control thing,’ he told the Free Press in a phone interview… ‘Them wanting to control the locker room. Control the locker room, control voices in the locker room.’” In the aftermath, Darius Slay, one of the Lions’ leaders and few stars, said, “I don’t give a damn” about whether or not he got traded.
I understand the argument that it’s too soon to give up on Patricia. Jon points out that “The most common trait of losing organizations is constant regime change. Bar none. Now you could argue it the chicken or the egg, but you can’t argue this.” I certainly won’t argue that point, but I will pick the chicken. Teams change their regime because they lose, not the other way around. The Patriots, Seahawks, and Steelers haven’t changed their coaching staff or front office because those units are successful.
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The Lions decided to rebuild when they didn’t need to. A franchise that experienced many years of insignificance and embarrassment was suddenly competent, and they threw it away. I said it then, I’ll say it now: the Lions didn’t know what they had from 2014-17 and now have something that isn’t going to take them where they want to go.