NEWSLETTER
Even in Detroit, eventually atrocious results stick out. And then after another year or two, it might finally be time for a change.
Took them a while, but the Lions landed there today:
The Detroit Lions announced today that Bob Quinn and Matt Patricia have been relieved of their duties. pic.twitter.com/Tz5Rc7y53Y
— Detroit Lions (@Lions) November 28, 2020
Quinn, who’d been at the helm of the Lions for five seasons, hired Patricia away from the Patriots three years ago. It has been an utter disaster ever since, both on and off the field. So today’s news is quite the bummer.
I’m not here to throw stones, all things considered elsewhere in the NFC North, but this was a move that was probably due a long time ago. The writing sure seemed to be on the wall last year, and if not then, by early this season (Detroit News):
With Stafford healthy, the Lions entered the 2020 season with expectations they’d be able to build on their competitive first half from the previous year. Those hopes were quickly dashed when the team coughed up a 17-point, fourth quarter lead to the Chicago Bears in the season opener, before going on the road and being obliterated by the Green Bay Packers, despite jumping out to a 11-point advantage in the opening quarter.
By that point, Patricia’s winning percentage through 34 games had dropped below Rod Marinelli’s during his dismal tenure in Detroit. After showing a pulse in Week 3, beating Arizona on the road, the Lions returned home and were crushed by a short-handed New Orleans squad missing six starters.
Patricia drew national rebuke for his comments following the game when he stated there had been a “lot of work to do” when he arrived in Detroit.
“It’s a bunch of trash because that wasn’t the case in Detroit,” former Lions quarterback and current ESPN analyst Dan Orlovsky said. “We were a good football team. Matthew Stafford was playing as good as he has in his career. That was because of Coach Caldwell. And we were an organization that was ascending. He was building. The culture was amazing. The culture was fantastic. So you had a winning record in three out of four years, the culture was great, your quarterback was playing really good football. So for him to come in and say there was a lot of work to be done is a bunch of trash.”
Several other former Lions, including Quin, James Ihedigbo, Joique Bell and Stephen Tulloch all echoed Orlovsky’s comments on social media in the days that followed.
Now the Lions get the jump on the front office and head coaching market, with plenty of time to decide on the next disappointment.
