Lions: Matt Patricia desperately needs to hire Wade Phillips

In somewhat of a surprising decision, Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay decided to fire veteran defensive coordinator Wade Phillips. He’s a coach the Detroit Lions need to pounce on.

Sure bringing in a 72-year old defensive coordinator isn’t usually an ideal decision when the league is becoming much more fast-paced than it’s even been with a host of YOUNG bright-minded offensive guru’s emerging yearly.  Also, the Detroit Lions decided to part ways with a 70-year old DC, so replacing him with an even older coordinator seems problematic, but is it?

There is a glaring difference between Wade Phillips and former Lions DC Paul Pasqualoni.  Not only has Phillips been an NFL head coach in the past, but he’s also been one of the better defensive coordinators for years.

When Matt Patricia hired Paul Pasqualoni as the teams’ defensive coordinator, it was the second time he’d been so in his career. Paul had a short two-year stint in a similar role with the Miami Dolphins defense from 2008-2009.

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For the majority of his professional career, he’s served as a defensive line coach.  Sure, under Matt Patricia in year one that DL played stout down the stretch, but where were they in 2019?  The entire defense struggled in 2019, and the pressure from ownership to win-now and the fanbase indeed led to Paul stepping down.

In 2008 under the direction of Paul P, Miami finished with the 15th best defense.  In 2009 Miami finished ranked 22nd in total defense, and that’s when Paul zipped into Jerry’s world becoming the Cowboys DL coach for the 2010 season, never again becoming a coordinator at the NFL level until he was hired by Patricia.

Wade Phillips, on the other hand, has had some tremendous defenses over the years.  Don’t forget it was his defense that ultimately won Super Bowl 50 for the Denver Broncos, not Peyton Manning‘s offense.

Phillips has had plenty of chances to be a head coach in the league, many times; he was promoted as an interim head coach like he was with New Orleans, Atlanta, and Houston.  Other times he was hired to be the guy like his time with Denver, Buffalo, and Dallas.

As you can see, he’s been around the block a time or two.  Overall, Wade has a respectable 82-64 record as a head coach, but his lack of postseason success on the job had been a struggle as his 1-5 record indicates.

He’s much better off being a defensive coordinator, and he’s someone the Detroit Lions should strongly consider hiring.  Phillips has churned out defensive player of the year numerous times.  Sure, he’s had plenty of talented players, Hall of Famers in fact, but as many coaches will tell you, sometimes coaching those egos and getting the maximum value and effort from those types of players is as tricky as coaching up a middle of the road talent.

Some notable defensive players he’s coached are the great Reggie White, Bruce Smith, Aaron Donald, Von Miller, and J.J. Watt.

Recently via Twitter, Phillips shared his desire to continue coaching;

Lions’ head coach Matt Patricia loves to use multiple defensive formations, but in the end, his bread and butter is a conservative, bend, but don’t break man-to-man base 3-4 defense. Well, it’s broken; actually, it’s shattered.  Phillips, on the other hand, runs an aggressive 3-4 defense.

The man-to-man part remains critical in Phillip’s defense, but he loves to bring the blitz to create pressure on the quarterback.  It’s something Detroit struggled mightily to do last season.  I believe Phillips wouldn’t only help stabilize Detroit’s defense; his prior head coaching experience would certainly aid Matt Patricia’s atrocious clock management problems, along with everything else that comes with being a head coach.

Last season the Rams defense finished allowing 339 yards/game, which ranked them 13th in the NFL.  Detroit allowed the 31st most yards/game at 400, just a mere 2 yards shy of the league-worst Arizona Cardinals.

Don’t forget, Detroit is Patricia’s first kick at the can, having a seasoned vet with a bunch of head coaching experience on his staff could go a long way for Patricia and Detroit’s development moving forward.