It looks like the Matt Patricia era is going to crawl to a painful, predictable conclusion
I've seen this movie countless times and already know how it ends.
I don’t know what else people need to see from the Detroit Lions and head coach Matt Patricia to know this arrangement just is not going to work out. They went into the fourth quarter of Sunday’s game against the Chicago Bears holding a 23-6 lead and let another victory slip through their fingers — quite literally this time — and lost 27-23.
Since 2006, NFL teams holding a 17-point lead in the fourth quarter are 779-3 with the Lions becoming just the fourth team in that span to lose a game the way that they did. Not included in that statistic — because it was a tie and not a loss — was the 24-6 fourth-quarter lead that was blown in last season’s season opener against the Arizona Cardinals.
As far as blown fourth-quarter leads go, it was the 11th in Patricia’s 23 losses in three seasons on the job.
The initial gut reaction from fans was heartbreak after the game-winning touchdown pass from Matthew Stafford slipped through the fingers of rookie running back D’Andre Swift. The Bears rushed three, the Lions had a good play call, Swift had his defenders beaten cleanly and just flat-out dropped the ball. That sucks. That hurts.
But it’s not what cost them the game.
“I put my arm around (Swift) as soon as we got to the tunnel, walked up the tunnel with him, and told him, you know, he’s a great player,” Patricia said after the game. “The game is not on him. It’s on me, it’s on the entire bad execution and bad plays that we had toward the end of the game and the bad coaching. We all had opportunities to do a better job and we know that we’ve got to do that going forward.”
Finally, something we can all agree on.
What he would say later on was one of the most laughable statements I have ever heard come out of a Lions head coach’s mouth, which is almost impressive given the team’s history.
When asked about potential coaching issues that may be playing into the late-game woes, Patricia deferred to a single play from his coaching career among thousands of snaps that should tell us how amazing a coach he is.
“I think I’ve got one of the biggest plays in the fourth quarter in the history of the NFL where I think I did a pretty good job,” Patricia replied, citing Malcolm Butler’s goalline interception against the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX.
Patricia continuing to cite this as evidence of his football acumen is akin to Mugatu screaming about how he invented the piano key necktie.
I don’t think I need to go too far into why that statement is absolutely absurd. It happened five years ago and the Patriots were the beneficiaries of a bad play call from Seattle offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell, who *gasp* is also employed by the Lions. Bevell is not blameless, either and Jeremy Reisman over at Pride of Detroit did a good job illustrating how his offense once again took the foot off the gas pedal.
The Lions touted “Dagger Time” as their new mantra during training camp of how there was an increased emphasis on closing out football games. It even hangs in Ford Field now in the upper deck, which is somehow even more embarrassing now than hanging a banner for playoff appearances.
I get that there are always overreactions after the first game of the season, but the issues had on Sunday have not occurred in a vacuum. There are three years of film on this coaching staff that shows that from the top on down, this is what they are and probably what they will continue to be moving forward. Patricia has not shown the ability or willingness to change or adjust what he does so despite 16 more weeks of football, it feels unlikely that there is some kind of switch that will ultimately be flipped.
Teams that are worth a damn win games like the one the Lions lost on Sunday. Mitch Trubisky was putrid for three quarters and then looked like Patrick Mahomes did in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl this past year. Half of the league will be 0-1 once the first week of games is complete, but the Lions played a familiar tune and did the things that have plagued them throughout the last three seasons.
To put it all simply, the Lions are a bad football team led by a bad coach who runs a bad defensive scheme filled with bad players. I truly believe that this offense is going to at the very least put them in a position to win some games, like they did once again on Sunday. But even when the secondary heals up, what good is it to put them on an island when nobody else can get to the quarterback and linebackers struggle to cover the middle of the field? It’s a mess.
Without a trip to the playoffs, this era of Lions football has to come to an end. Three years in the NFL for a coaching staff is an eternity. General Bob Quinn has been in Detroit even longer and made the determination the previous head coach — who had a record of 36-28 in four seasons n the job — was not the right man for the job. And that still was the right decision. The Lions needed to find their Scotty Bowman and instead hired their Brad Ausmus.
There is time to get it turned around, but it feels a lot like last year right now. The next three weeks feature trips to Green Bay and Arizona and then a return home to play the New Orleans Saints. You probably need to win two of those three games to feel in a somewhat stable spot heading into the second quarter of the season. But even in a year that features an expanded playoff field, those ones that you let slip away loom large.
Sunday was a missed opportunity, but above all else, it was a familiar feeling and ending all too similar to what we have seen before.
Thanks for taking the time out of your day to read this! I can be found on Twitter @anthonytbroome to continue the discussion with you. Be sure to sure with your friends and subscribe for more content like this sent right to your email inbox!