Will Matt Patricia Keep His Job?

By Darragh Holland

Ask any Lions fan at the minute and they will most likely say that they want Matt Patricia fired straight away and don’t even want him to last the season.

Nobody likes to see anyone lose their job, but as the Lions season continues to go from bad to worse it’s hard to see the point in the Lions holding onto Patricia any longer.

The Lions performances all year long have given no indication of improvement from the team or the coaching staff.  It also doesn’t help his cause that Matt Patricia continues to battle with the media.

A few weeks back, Patricia talked about how he had inherited such a bad team that there was “a lot of work to do”, even though the previous head coach Jim Caldwell had a better record at this stage in their careers with the Lions (Jim Caldwelll went 38-28 with 2 playoff appearances).

No one likes to see finger pointing at any time, but it certainly doesn’t help in this case where Caldwell was actually doing a solid job for most of his time in Detroit. 

After Jim Caldwell was good enough to get to the playoffs with the Lions twice in his tenure, Matt Patricia was supposed to step in and help take the Lions to the next level.

Jim Caldwell had a 36-28, the first Lions head coach to have a winning record. (Aaron Doster/USA TODAY Sports)

This could be a case of “be careful what you wish for” as the Lions have only gone backwards in the past 3 seasons and show no signs of turning the corner any time soon.

Patricia's record now stands at just 13-29-1 after another loss, this time an embarrassing one on prime time football in a Thanksgiving Day defeat to the 3-7 Houston Texans.

Turnovers really let the Lions down early in this game, as has been the case all season with individual errors costing them in important moments.  This was no more evident than D’Andre Swift dropping the potential game winning pass against the Bears in Week 1, which turned out to be a precursor for their season going forward. Leading 23- 6 early in the 4th quarter, the Lions managed to blow the lead and start the season off on a bad note, starting 0-1 against a divisional rival rather in a game that they should have won.

All this despite the fact that the Lions have the advantage of playing in a poor NFC North division this season as the Bears and Vikings strike hot and cold week to week but never really catch fire to challenge the Green Bay Packers or even look like a solid wildcard team.

Sitting at 4-7 and still having to play the Bears, Vikings, Buccaneers, Packers and Titans, it’s hard to see anything other than a 5-11 record this season for the Lions, at best.

For Matt Patricia,  this season will add to his 6-10 record in his first season as the Lions Head Coach, and a wholeful 3-12-1 season in 2019— which in fairness, the team was without Matthew Stafford for eight games.

Still, not the numbers you expected coming from a playoff calibre team as this was not  a rebuilding situation for the franchise at the time.

The Matt Patricia move was to bring a winning culture to the team and to get the Lions to become a consistent playoff contender and actually start winning some games.

To prove the point of how much the Lions have regressed, look at the only four teams they have beaten this season.Other than a good win against the Cardinals early in the season,  the Lions only three other wins this season have come against the Jags, Falcons and Washington,all teams that rank towards the bottom of the NFL worse this season.

Their defense has struggled each season under Patricia and currently ranks 28th in the NFL, even though that was supposed to be Patricia's strength coming from New England.

While hindsight is great for all of us, there’s no question that coaches need time to put together the team they want.

Maybe the Lions should have given Caldwell more of it, as he was making progress whereas under Patricia, it seems like the team is going backwards year to year, and a change is imminent. 

With the Texans and Falcons both finding improvements since moving on from their head coaches earlier in the season, the Lions might see value in getting a fresh face in for the rest of the season,also allowing them time to select their best candidate so they can hit the ground running in January.

Darragh is a sports writer for La Tonique Media.