Detroit Lions: Matt Patricia is on the same hot seat as past coaches

The Detroit Lions believe Matt Patricia is the man to lead them to a championship, but he will still need to prove himself.

The semi-biannual changing of the coaching staff for the Detroit Lions has happened again this year and once again the franchise is telling us that they got it right.

While there are certainly reasons to believe that they have, there should also be no free pass.

This past Sunday my good friend called up to wish me a happy Easter and go through the usual claptrap that friends often do.

Then we reached a small pause in the conversation and as expected he decided to let me know that I was being unfair to Jim Caldwell. I then asked him how citing the fact that Caldwell had been dismissed because the Lions thought they could do better was being unfair.

After all, I didn’t fire him.

He started to give me the old ‘players liked him and played hard for him and he had a winning record’ song and dance. Unfortunately that song is out of tune.

Before we get into why, let’s start with the fact that I have given credit to both of the Lions previous two coaches for making positive changes to this franchise. Jim Schwartz brought the Lions to a level of respectability, but they were undisciplined under him and committed far too many penalties and he didn’t help himself by going off the deep end late in his final season.

As for Jim Caldwell, yes he was well liked and the players did play hard for him, but he was also unable to make in-game adjustments which is half the reason the good teams win and the bad teams lose.