Chicago Bears: The Achilles heel of each NFC North team

Matt Patricia will be the Lions downfall

We have seen this movie before right? A Bill Belichick disciple gets a head coaching gig. Attempts run their team like Belichick but isn’t Belichick. The whole thing blows up in their face and are shortly fired after. Apparently, the Lions haven’t seen this flick.

After coaching the Detroit Lions to last-place finishes in back to back seasons, lambasting reporters, and players publicly saying they outright don’t respect him. Matt Patricia still has a head coaching job in the NFL. Before Lions fans stop reading, calling him a bad coach goes beyond a few poor relationships with some players. He has underwhelmed at the X’s and O’s as well.

Remember when Patricia was deemed the next defensive mastermind during his time with Patriots? Well, that hasn’t been the case thus far. According to Football Outsiders, the Lions defense has ranked 27th and 30th in DVOA (a stat that measures defensive efficiency on every play) under Patricia.

Their main issue has been generating pressure. They ranked 30th in total pressures in 2018 and 27th in 2019 according to PFF. A lot of that has to do with Trey Flowers being their only guy that can consistently get after the quarterback. Yet, Patrica is still unwilling to blitz. Ranking in the bottom three in blitz percentage over the last two seasons (per Pro Football Reference).

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Lastly, Davante Adams came out and said that the Lions don’t disguise their man from zone coverages. Former Lion Darius Slay confirmed this to be true. This is terrible coaching because NFL offenses are too efficient for it to be that easy to figure what a defense is doing. Half of the battle is being deceptive.

The Lions don’t have a super bowl roster but top to bottom, it’s arguably the best in the North. Unfortunately, that might not matter because of Patricia’s incompetence. A talented team can only go so far with a bad head coach.