This will be Matt Patricia’s third season as head coach of the Detroit Lions, and it already appears that he’s on the hot seat.
In fact, him returning in 2020 was a surprise to many, even with Lions ownership often being slow to pull the trigger on parting ways with struggling head coaches.
But Lions new chairman Sheila Ford Hamp has made it clear that she expects the team to improve going forward, and Patricia appears to be aware he needs to right the ship, or likely face the consequences as a result. That’s probably why he’s attempting to scale back his list of gameday tasks to manage, as it’s now been reported that he will no longer be calling plays on defense.
Instead, that task will now be assigned to new defensive coordinator Cory Undlin, who was hired earlier in the year, according to a report from Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press.
This is surprising, as Patricia’s biggest strength is his ability to coach up a defense and call plays on that side of the ball, which he did in New England for a number of years, learning from Bill Belichick. And now that task will be given to a coach who wasn’t even on his staff last season. We don’t see this move ending well for the Lions.
