What will the Detroit Lions identity be under Matt Patricia?

Projecting how a new head coach will do in the NFL isn’t easy. Whether he has experience or not.

Yet, it hasn’t stopped the mass media from making their opinions known. Which I guess we can say I will also be taking a stab at myself.

Back when the dust settled on the coaching carousel and all the opening were filled, except for the Colts because Josh McDaniels backed out at the last minute to stay in New England, national pundit Colin Cowherd made his bold predictions about how the new coaches would fair.

He gave all of them a passing grade except Matt Patricia who he said would fail. After which he went on a tangent about how successful the Colts would have been if McDaniels hadn’t backed out.

This led me to wonder how it was perceived that Patricia, who also happened to be the hottest candidate on the market, would be the only one to fail while apparently everyone else couldn’t miss?

This of course led to only one conclusion; it’s Detroit, so therefore it’s failure.

This leads me to another point that needs to be made; just like we need to stop associating Quinn and Patricia with the Patriots, we need to be open minded enough to judge Patricia on his own talents and abilities rather just assuming he will be sucked under by the traditional coaches graveyard here in Detroit.

By now we all know that Patricia is literally a rocket scientist who walked away aeronautical engineering to coach the game he loves and has had great success getting the most out of his players.

He also changed how business was run back in Boston because he was always coming up with new approaches to handling everything from film study to individual drills.

That being the case, outside of no head coaching experience, why does a smart coach who is detail oriented and elevates the play of his unit have no chance to succeed? The answer; there are no guarantees, but his chances are as good as anyone else’s. If not better than many.

Matt Patricia wants his Lions to play smart, fast and physical. That would be a great three-headed monster for this franchise to be identified with. It would also probably mean they would finally find some playoff success too.

If they can meet his expectations.

The 4×4 relay is never won in the first lap and what Patricia accomplishes here in Detroit won’t be written in one season. He will ultimately be judged on his whole body of work some day down the road. As for now, I would find it hard to believe he won’t find some success.

Next: Fairly ranking Matthew Stafford and a decade of No. 1 picks

Provided Bob Quinn can continue to build this roster, the Matt Patricia Lions will most likely be identified with at least two out of his three mandates which means they should be a competitive team that will allow their fans to dream big.

Which is exactly how Quinn and Patricia are thinking as they build the foundation for the ‘Lions way’.