The name Matt Patricia holds a special place in Detroit Lions' history, for all the wrong reasons. It's still surprising to realize he didn't last three full seasons as the head coach in Detroit, since it should have taken way longer to wreck things the way he did.
Patricia is of course a noted former assistant of six-time Super Bowl champion Bill Belichick with the New England Patriots, and like his former boss he's making a foray into media.
One of Belichick's media jobs during what may be his gap-year before taking another head coaching job is appearing on the "Let's Go" podcast with Jim Gray. Episodes debut on Mondays each week, and former co-host Tom Brady was a guest on this week's episode.
Brady asked Belichick about what teams besides the Kansas City Chiefs have "got it going" right now. He eventually got to the Lions.
"I think that the Lions have built a really good offensive line for their quarterback, and they couldn't get a lot of production in the red area last week but that's something that Matt Patricia started and now they're kind of getting the fruits of the labor from him,"
Bill Belichick conveniently ignores facts to credit Matt Patricia for Lions' current success
Deep breath, Lions' fans.
Now, let's get down to the basic facts regarding what Belichick said about Patricia's role in building the offensive line.
Patricia was hired as Lions' head coach in 2018. Left tackle Taylor Decker was a first-round pick in 2016, by then-general manager Bob Quinn, who of course tapped into mutual Patriots' roots to hire Patricia.
Left guard Graham Glasgow was a third-round pick by the Lions in 2016. He left as a free agent in 2020, after Quinn and Patricia did not make him a competitive contract offer, and he came back in 2023.
Center Frank Ragnow was the Lions' first-round pick in 2018, with Quinn as the general manager and Patricia in his first year as Lions' head coach.
Right guard Kevin Zeitler was a free agent signing this year. The player he essentially has replaced on the Lions' offensive line, Jonah Jackson, was a third-round pick in 2020, the last draft for the "Quinntricia" regime.
Right tackle Penei Sewell was the first draft pick of the current regime, seventh overall in 2021.
Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press appropriately prefaced his article about what Belichick said, and the comments on Twitter do not disappoint.
To credit Patricia for anything the Lions are doing now, other than how his ineptitude pushed them toward a total opposite coach like Dan Campbell, is a reach. In terms of the current offensive line, only Ragnow was drafted or signed when Patricia was the Lions' head coach.
If given the chance to further try to credit his former assistant for the Lions' current success, Belichick would surely ignore how Patricia has the fourth-lowest winning percentage (.314) of any full-time Lions head coach in the Super Bowl era. But facts can be inconvenient, including how Belichick though Patricia was capable of calling offensive plays for the Patriots a couple years ago.
