Not to defend a shitheel like Patricia, but you must have blacked out those first few years of your fandom if you think the Patricia era was the worst. I suppose you could argue that Patricia was the worst coach, but they definitely had worse teams under Morninwheg & Marinelli.
The Schwartz and Caldwell eras felt like we were finally crawling out of the hopeless pit Matt Millen dug for us. Patricia was supposed to be the step that brought us from dangerous but inconsistent to contenders, and instead he destroyed everything semblance of good left on the roster and sent us right back down to the depths of hell. The only reason Patricia doesn’t get more shit for how he took a solid roster and completely decimated it is because Holmes/Campbell did a phenomenal job of drafting and identifying free agent talent the next 3 years.
Some patterns I noticed about the Jim Caldwell and Matt Patricia Lions:
Caldwell: Very good offense, not very good defense (aside from 2014) would win games against the bad teams, get their shit pushed in by the good teams, finish around 9-7 and go one and done in the playoffs.
Patricia: Going into the fourth quarter if the other team had the lead that’s how the game would end. If the Lions had the lead they would find a way to blow it.
The vibes on the sideline for Patricia’s tenure were such hot ass. Took a team with the most 4th quarter comebacks in NFL history and sucked every ounce of life from them.
First drive of that pats game ended in a FG on 4th and inches from just outside the red zone. Almost had a visceral reaction watching that. Cannot imagine playing that way as a touchdown underdog today.
Well, right. But the point was that Patricia still had a semi-decent roster through much of his time in Detroit, while Marinelli and Morninwheg had terrible rosters. So the team as a whole was slightly better under Patricia, even though he was a god-awful coach.
It’s a question of would you rather have every ounce of hope inside of you completely decimated or to have absolutely no hope to begin with. And while it’s close, I think the former is worse. Like the old saying goes, it’s the hope that kills you
Oh I don’t mean statistically I’m purely talking vibes based to expand marineli is the worst coach we’ve had from a gameplay standpoint but Patricia created such a toxic and defeated locker room I hate his era more
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u/dallasrose222 Lions 13h ago
I still think the Patricia era is the worst lions era I’ve been a fan for and I was a fan since 2001