Foster new growth and development in coaching
Matt Patricia sure didn’t look like he was enjoying himself as a first-year head coach and he definitely took his lumps.
Brutal losses and poor play calling were black eyes on a year that was initially deemed as one in which Detroit would be taking the next rung up on the ladder of NFL competitiveness.
Coach Patricia isn’t a dim bulb, far from it. I’m sure he has intently focused himself throughout this offseason on mistakes that were made last year by he, his staff, and his team and has already gotten to work on preventing those same mistakes from rearing their ugly heads so often again this year.
As a fan, there’s nothing more frustrating than seeing your team continue to dial up failing plays that don’t work series after series while the losses pile up.
At the start of last year, you would have been hard pressed to find a soul who would have voted against Patricia retaining Jim Bob Cooter on his staff as his offensive coordinator and yet by the time the clock hit 0:00 after that terrible Week 1 debacle against the New York Jets, nearly the entire fan base was calling for his job!
After their team handily won the game 48-17, New York’s defense singled out Detroit’s offensive play calling, saying that the Lions’ offense was predictable. Just in case you’re wondering, it’s never good when the opposing defense is calling out your plays pre-snap!
By now, we all know that as a result of a lackluster offensive, the Lions and Cooter parted ways earlier this offseason. Detroit went on to hire a Super Bowl-winning offensive coordinator in Darrell Bevell to take over for Jim Bob.
Bevell, as one of the driving forces behind Marshawn Lynch and the Seattle Seahawks’ years of run game dominance during their championship stretch, looks to bring a more balanced offensive approach to Detroit in order to help preserve Matthew Stafford’s right arm and to gain maximum results from the promising young running back Kerryon Johnson.
Not repeating the same miscues on the offensive side will be pivotal if the Lions are to be successful in 2019.