Detroit Lions: Not all the questions are on the field
By Robert Jones
Now in the short time Matt Patricia has been here in Detroit, he has certainly been very gregarious and personable. The type of guy that makes it easy to say, ‘he couldn’t have done that’. When you add in all the high compliments his former players in New England have had to say about him, it seems very much out of the character they portray him to be.
In the end, all we can say is that we hope he is indeed innocent. He will be expected to not only be the brilliant coach this team has been searching for, but also a positive role model to the players in that locker room as well as fans everywhere.
Charlie Casserly the longtime NFL general manager and now current NFL Network analyst summed it up like this:
"“Nothing should eliminate a candidate because of a headline. The research should eliminate a candidate. I think we jump on headlines too much. Go back to the Duke lacrosse (case), OK? At the end of the day, the Duke lacrosse, as I understand it, proved that those players were not guilty of anything,” said Casserly according to the Detroit Free Press. “So we’ve got to be careful we don’t fall into Duke lacrosse anytime there’s a headline. But anything that comes up needs to be vetted, needs to be taken seriously. I mean that’s the commonsense approach to the thing.”"
If the Lions believe in Matt Patricia and want to back him, there is nothing wrong with that way of thinking. But they do need to be sure that they have completely exhausted all their resources in checking into the situation.
This would be less of an issue if the Lions had been aware of it from the beginning and had been able to respond to the press by saying that they conducted a thorough background check into the situation with all parties involved or at least those that would speak to them, and the organization was completely satisfied that the case had been handled properly.
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There would still be questions and backlash, but at least the Detroit Lions would have proven themselves to have the situation under control instead of simply doing the ‘same old Lions’ thing and finding yet another way to embarrass themselves and their fans.