I mean, this was coming. After an embarrassing loss at home to the Houston Texans on Thanksgiving Day, where DeShaun Watson threw touchdown after touchdown and looked like Patrick Mahomes, despite not having receivers that Mahomes has (thanks a lot, Bill O' Brien) on a defensive minded team that wasn't defensive, the move needed to be made.
I'm not going to go long on this like the Bill O' Brien blog, because this was academic. What doomed Matt Patricia? He should've never been hired in the first place.
Jim Caldwell was a bland coach, okay, but, he was steering the Lions into the right direction and players loved playing for him. I just pulled up an article from Sports Illustrated with Reggie Bush saying " Our team was better with Jim Caldwell". He wasn't going to be outrageous or over-the-top, but he did his job at making the Lions better.
Then, Detroit decided to fire Caldwell for no reason and hire the next hot coaching prospect in Matt Patricia. Hahaha, Matt Patricia was never a hot coaching prospect. Because experts said that he was. Wasn't Josh McDaniels a hot coaching prospect, then what happened? Patricia was clearly in over his head on the job. He had his players practice in the cold, yet some practice facilities are indoors. He once scolded a reporter for his posture (a video that I posted on our Facebook page) and supposedly, arrived late to team meetings. I heard stories that Jon Gruden in his first stint with the Raiders, would sleep in his office after a long day's work.
They wanted to do things "The Patriot Way" and that didn't work. The Lions continue to follow trends instead of planning a blueprint to success. Matthew Stafford, the franchise quarterback, couldn't follow that since he is not Tom Brady. He is a gunslinger and the offensive coordinator can use that to his advantage. Yet, under Patricia and now former GM Bob Quinn, they didn't see it that way. They drafted in the way they wanted their squad to be like the Patriots. In 2019, they drafted T.J. Hockenson as their first round pick to be their Gronk. Clearly, that hasn't worked out. Patricia chased players out of town like Darius Slay, their best defensive player, because he and Slay couldn't get along and traded Slay to Philadelphia. They drafted Jeff Okudah with the 3rd in this year's draft to replace Slay and he had an up-and-down rookie season. I think he will be okay. Stafford and Patricia also didn't see eye-to-eye with basically everything.
Since taking over as principal owner of the Lions earlier this year, Sheila Ford Hemp knows she has a lot of work cut out for her. Not only does she have to find a new head coach and general manager, but she has to lead this franchise into restoring goodwill in the community and Detroit Lions fans across the country.
So, as former players flee to social media to show glee about the karma that occurred and Lions fans thanking DeShaun Watson for his performance that was the icing on the cake (Shouldn't they be thanking Bill O' Brien, too? Never mind.), the duo of "Quinntricia" has to start over at another franchise and work their way back. Hopefully not as head coach or general manager as Patricia's termination continues an underwhelming trend of New England assistants as head coach (.431 winning percentage as per ESPN).
They wanted to be the New England Patriots so badly, but in the end, they were just the old Detroit Lions.
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