A friend of mine who requested some help with the youth basketball team he is coaching decided to follow up practice by talking shop with me. Invariably the discussion turned to our struggling Lions. He then asked me who is to blame for this poor season; Patricia or Stafford?
Let’s first quickly reiterating what I said before; is almost impossible to lay the blame for a collapse like this on the shoulders of one individual when football happens to be the ultimate team sport.
While some players may make their teams better or even champions, they still need the help of their teammates to accomplish that achievement.
So having established that it is not the fault of one person, but the whole organization, what unfortunate soul gets to be the face of ‘Lions futility 2018’?
There are certainly extenuating circumstances that go both ways, but after we weigh the options as best as we can, we will see who wins this title that nobody wants.
We’ll start with Matt Patricia. This is general manager Bob Quinn’s hand-picked choice to be the Lions head coach. Basically, outside of Bill Belichick being available, there wasn’t anyone that Bob Quinn would have chosen over Matt Patricia.
That means that there is no one Quinn believes is more capable, again outside of Belichick, to lead the Lions to Super Bowl glory. Quinn set the stakes for this season by announcing that the team had ‘underachieved’ last year when he relieved Jim Caldwell of the Lions head coaching duties.
This where the expectations took their first big jump. Everyone assumed that meant the Detroit Lions were gunning for a title this season. Yet, to be honest, neither Quinn nor Matt Patricia ever actually said that. They both talked about this being a process, which usually means some degree of rebuilding.
That means that the step backward this year was not completely unexpected by Quinn and Patricia. The rather sizable roster turnover in the defensive front seven combined with the complexity of learning Patricia’s defense should have been the handwriting on the wall for everyone paying attention.
Instead, the miracle was expected of Patricia. Wave his beard and explain the intricacies of his defense to his players using magic words and presto; instant dominant defense.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way and the Lions proved it with some horrible defense early in the season. Especially against the run.