Detroit Lions: Will OTA’s shed a little light on Matt Patricia’s defense?
By Robert Jones
Today will feature the first day that the press will get to see at least some of the teams workouts. It will give them their first chance to see how they are lining up on defense and what seems to be the main points of emphasis.
That is from a technique standpoint.
We all know the Matt Patricia mantra that he wants the defense to play smart, hard and fast. But hey, what coach doesn’t want his defense to play like that?
Yet the interest lies in which defensive formations they line up in most frequently? How do they utilize their personnel? How well do they seem to grasp their responsibilities?
OTA’s won’t provide all the answers to these questions, but they should give anyone lucky enough to be a spectator an idea or feel for how Matt Patricia will orchestrate his very own defense.
As the New England Patriots defensive coordinator for the last several seasons, he was given a tremendous amount of freedom to run that side of the ball the way he chose to, but it was still under the framework of Bill Belichick’s philosophy.
That’s the job of any head coach, to set the table for the teams philosophy and find assistant coaches as well as players that will be able to execute his vision of what he wants his team to be on game day.
A concept much easier to say than to do.
Yet this week is the week that his players are taking their first baby-steps into his vision of what this franchise should be. It doesn’t mean we will have all the answers by the end of OTA’s today.
It doesn’t mean we will have all the answers by the end of next weeks OTA sessions.
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But given the opportunity to see what tendencies they display, if any, as they start getting this defense ready for training camp just might give us a little more insight into what the ‘Matt Patricia way’ really is.
If not, then it should really be fun when the preseason finally begins and we get to at least see what Patricia’s version of a ‘vanilla’ defense looks like.