In 2018, the Detroit Lions hired former New England Patriots defensive coordinator Matt Patricia to be their head coach. At the time, the Lions were coming off a 9-7 season, and he was supposed to be the guy who took the team to the next step.
He was instead the NFL's version of Thanos. He came in and snapped his fingers, and half the players you loved were gone, and the team was destroyed. The big one that was so incomprehensible for so long was Darius Slay.
How could you trade an All-Pro corner like that? We've always known that there was a beef between Patricia and Slay, but we never really knew what that was about until now.
Former Lions fullback Jason Cabinda had former Lions' cornerback Amani Oruwariye on his YouTube show The Fairway Huddle this week, and Cabinda detailed exactly how things went down during joint practices with the New York Giants ahead of the 2018 season.
"Odell (Beckham Jr. ) was getting the better of Slay during practices. And we come into that team meeting room, and after the practice, Slay is chopping it up with Odell. They taking pictures and all that type of stuff. Matty P is trying to, like, drive F-ing culture and being hard-nosed and hard-headed as F and F everybody. That was his vibe. And like, Matty P didn't like that they were shaking hands, taking pictures after, and stuff.
But Matty P comes in and makes up a little compilation of the routes that Odell beat Slay on, and was showing it in the team meeting room with the pointer. So, Slay was getting cooked by Odell. And like, after he finishes showing the plays with a F-ing laser pointer, he's like, 'this is your best friend? This is your guy?' Basically challenging him. "Why are you shaking hands with this guy after?' That's the enemy type of vibe. And it was very much so an embarrassing tactic type of deal. Slay was not having that at all. That was for sure the worst way Matty P could have handled that."
Cabinda also said that era was the most miserable three years of football in his entire life. Oruwariye talked about how Patricia ran practices so much differently than other teams in the league, and felt that there was way too much conditioning, which led to injuries.
Cabinda posted a clip of this on his Instagram, and multiple former Lions commented on it. The notable player was Quandre Diggs. He said that after that happened, Patricia lost the entire locker room.
Diggs was traded before Slay, and one of the reasons we always got is that Diggs wouldn't bend to Patricia's will and keep quiet. Looks like he had good reasons to do that.
Slay also commented on that post and explained that he and Patricia had squashed the beef in Philadelphia when the Eagles hired the former Lions coach in 2023.
