Detroit Lions: Matt Patricia should have been fired yesterday

There is no reason that the Detroit Lions should keep head coach Matt Patricia around for the remainder of the 2020 season.

It’s time for Detroit Lions general manager Bob Quinn to fire head coach Matt Patricia.  Forget this ‘attached at the hip’ stuff.  I don’t care how close the two are; business is business.  It’s time Quinn puts his friendship aside and do what is best for the organization.  Isn’t that what a general manager is supposed to do?  Patricia should have been flying economy back to Detroit and locked off of the team’s charter plane.

It’s not working in Detroit.  In fact, nothing has worked in Detroit since Patricia arrived.  Patricia inherited a 9-7 football team and molded that unit with help from his good pal Quinn into a consistent three-win club.

Fans deserve a better product, and it is the front office that should be focused on putting that product onto the field.  Fans understand things take time; a roster overhaul doesn’t usually provide positive results right away.  But here’s the thing, fans need to see the organization taking strides in the right direction to remain content.  That hasn’t happened.

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It’s year three of Patricia, and not only are his vanilla post-game comments calculated, rehearsed, and recycled.  He makes similar snarky comments loss after loss.  ‘We need to coach better; we need to play better’ blah blah blah.  It’s the same story week after week.

Let me ask you a question.  What else could Quinn be waiting for?  Do these two friends have a pact where they drive this franchise until the wheels fall off?  Why wouldn’t Quinn make a last ditched effort to salvage his job?  Things don’t add up.

To me, it signals that Quinn is so comfortable with team president Rod Wood and owner Sheila Ford Hamp, he doesn’t really presume his career is in jeopardy.  If he thought his job was on the line, he’d be making changes to this coaching staff and putting an interim head coach like Brayden Coombs in place who has excelled running the Detroit Lions special teams.   John Harbaugh is living proof that special teams coordinators can survive as head coaches in this league.

Recently I wrote this stretch of the schedule had been an opportunity to string together a few wins.  It was a chance for the Detroit Lions to play themselves back into playoff contention, but instead, the Lions have continued their underwhelming play under Patricia’s thumb.

The Lions had been embarrassed a week ago at home against the Colts, followed by an absolute trouncing at the hands of Minnesota solidifying nine straight losses against NFC North opponents for Detroit.

If Quinn remains reluctant to make a move, ownership needs to step in and end this misery.  Patricia needs to go; by doing so, the organization will have the upper hand when it comes to interviewing, scouting, and connecting with Patricia’s successor.