Lions Counterpoint: What Should The Team Do With Matt Patricia?
By Jon Poole
They also can’t get off the field on 3rd down either compared to last season with quarterbacks having all day to throw this year. According to Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press;
"The Lions have struggled in one area all season that’s at the root of their defensive struggles: Getting off the field. This year, the Lions are averaging more defensive plays per game (67.9) than any team in the NFL, and being on the field so much has exposed them. Last year, the Lions played fewer defensive plays (942, or 59.9 per game) than any team in the NFL, something that helped masked their defensive deficiencies."
I don’t think the Lions were necessarily as good as the defensive rankings say last year or as bad as they say this year, but I’m also not putting as much stock into those numbers as I usually would either because this is a rebuild, with growing pains. A lot of this is just recency biased conversation, in my opinion, but I’ll play along for now.
It’s already become clear that Patricia struggles to make the right game management decisions, making conservative decisions that—rightly—draw ire.
I said I was going to leave Caldwell in the past and still will, for the most part. But coming from someone whose main point seems to me they shouldn’t have moved on from Caldwell, I was shocked when Colton brought up game management.
I completely disagree. Colton lists two examples, the Jets in week one last season, thinking Jim Bob Cooter’s offense is predictable. As well as the Arizona timeout in week one this season with the clock winding down, a situation where they were still able to play the same down and distance. Sorry, you have to come stronger than that.
Colton also thinks Patricia’s 4th down decisions are conservative; I have no strong feeling, either way, to be honest, being conservative and aggressive can both hurt or help. I feel better about the game management as a whole under Patricia than I did Schwartz and better than under Caldwell, who was the worst game manager I have ever seen on the Lions sideline, maybe at the pro level. Remember – ‘Pass back and forth kind of thing’…