Bad Coaching in the NFL: Matt Patricia reaches rock bottom

We’ve already seen two head coaches fired this offseason, and in Detroit, Lions head coach Matt Patricia seems hellbent on being the third.

The road rose up to meet Matt Patricia over the last six weeks. And Patricia chose to lie down in the middle of that road and wait for a tractor trailer to run him over.

The Lions faced one of the NFL’s easiest stretches of schedule after they emerged from their Week 4 bye: the Jacksonville Jaguars, Atlanta Falcons, Indianapolis Colts, Minnesota Vikings, Washington Football Team, Carolina Panthers and Houston Texans were a combined 8-20 at that point.

It was a perfect opportunity for Patricia’s 1-2 Lions to put together a winning streak, perhaps beat up a tomato can or two, and at least create the illusion that Patricia’s “bootleg Patriots” culture was actually gaining a little traction.

The Lions started their Tutorial Mode schedule with a convincing win over the Jaguars. They picked up a second win on Todd Gurley’s score-too-soon fourth-quarter touchdown and a vintage Falcons defensive collapse; if any team was built to win games by allowing easy touchdowns, it’s Patricia’s Lions. Anyway: so far, so good.

The Lions got smoked by the Colts in Week 8, but the Colts were the one tough opponent on their midseason schedule. The Vikings then ran for 275 yards on them in a 34-20 victory: not an encouraging sign. The Lions took a 24-3 lead over Washington but then let them come back to tie the game on a series of 11-play, 80-plus yard drives.

Patricia needed a 59-yard last-second Matt Prater field goal to beat a team that wishes to remain anonymous.

That brings us to Sunday, the 3-7 Panthers, and XFL legend P.J. Walker. A win against a rebuilding team with a rookie coach and a minor league quarterback could still salvage Patricia’s reputation and position the Lions to enter their Thanksgiving showdown with the Texans with a shred of dignity and an outside shot at a Wild Card berth.

As you know by now, the Lions not only lost but were shut out 20-0, marking a new low for the Patricia era.

It’s impossible to pick out one critical mistake in Sunday’s loss. Sure, Patricia punted twice in the first half after driving into Panthers territory. Sure, the Lions were still trying to run the ball, unsuccessfully, while trailing 17-0 late in the second half. Sure, Patricia keeps doing weird things with his secondary, rotating cornerbacks in and out and alternating between easy-to-read man coverage and high thread count soft zone coverage.

And yes, the Lions were dealing with multiple injuries. Did we mention they were facing an opposing quarterback who played for the Houston Roughnecks?

No, Sunday’s loss was all about the entire Lions defensive line getting plowed backwards into the end zone on a one-yard Mike Davis touchdown, rookie cornerback Jeff Okuda running two steps behind D.J. Moore up the left sideline, Moore taking an end-around and finding only one Lions defender on the back side of the play, and Matthew Stafford getting sacked out of field goal range.

It was about getting beaten in the trenches and out-hustled in the secondary. Matt Rhule didn’t have to do much to out-coach Patrica on the field because Patricia has been out-coaching himself for two-and-a-half-years off the field.

If you have not yet done so, read Kalyn Kahler’s deep Bleacher Report dive into Patricia’s tenure. Kahler fills in the blanks around Patricia’s most legendary acts of faux-Belichickian tough-guyism, from his dustups with former Lions stalwarts Darius Slay and Quandre Diggs to his cuss-filled rants to his counterproductively-grueling practice routines.

The Lions team that got shut out by the Panthers on Sunday certainly looked gassed and demoralized by a coach whose only solution to their myriad problems is “be more like the Patriots used to be.”

The Lions are ready to sim to the end of the season. But first, they must face the Texans, who represent the smoldering aftermath of another Belichick wannabe’s dictatorial regime.

Calling Thursday’s Fake Patriots Futility Bowl a “turkey” would be corny. There’s a good chance it will be the final game of Patricia’s embarrassing head coaching career. If so, it’s coming at least 11 months too late.

As a coda: former Lions head coach Jim Caldwell subtweeted the Lions on Twitter after Sunday’s loss. “Great leadership requires a devotion to task, mission and ideology that can be understood by watching the man or woman in charge lead their life,” he wrote within minutes of the Lions loss.

Amen, coach.

Forgettin’ Pettine

C’mon Coach dares you to watch Michael Pittman Jr.’s 51-yard touchdown catch against the Green Bay Packers and try to figure out what coverage coordinator Mike Pettine called.

Was it some sort of matchup zone? It sure looked like linebacker Christian Kirksey was responsible for Pittman when he crossed the middle of the field, except Kirksey also appeared to be responsible for tight end Mo Alie-Cox crossing the middle of the field a few yards behind him.

Meanwhile, three defenders appear to be covering slot receiver Zach Pascal on a skinny post. So maybe it was Triple Man Three Deep One-on-Two or something.

Color commentator Troy Aikman was certainly flummoxed in the broadcast booth. “I’d like to tell you I know what Green Bay’s doing on defense, but I just don’t,” Aikman said. They got guys running all over the place … It was a fire drill on the back end.” Even Alie-Cox appears surprised when he turns upfield to block for Pittman and cannot locate a single Packers defender.

Eh, Frank Reich is a clever play-caller, and coverage lapses happen, right? So let’s try to figure out what the Packers were doing on Trey Burton’s second-quarter touchdown.

This Packers appear to be in some man-zone coverage hybrid with 270-pound edge rusher Preston Smith running up the seam with Burton! Not surprisingly, Smith gets turned around on a little inside-out move and loses Burton because SMITH IS A SACK SPECIALIST FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT’S HOLY ONLY A CRAZY PERSON WOULD EXPECT HIM TO MAKE A PLAY IN COVERAGE 20 YARDS DOWNFIELD.

Watch carefully and you will see the deep safety drift to the other side of the field, which isn’t ideal when a glorified defensive end is trying to cover a tight end, and that Jack Doyle is completely uncovered at the 10-yard line.

The Packers are not blitzing on this play, and there is no tricky Colts motion to isolate Smith or fool the Packers defense. This is just how Pettine defends the red zone.

No discussion of Pettine’s performance in Sunday’s loss would be complete without a breaking down what happened when the Colts were trying to run out the clock in the fourth quarter. Smith, all tuckered out from chasing tight ends, jumped offsides for the second time in the quarter to start one sequence (the penalty was wrongly assigned to another defender).

The Packers then got caught with 12 men on the field, and it wasn’t a case of someone running off the field at the last moment: there were just 12 guys lined up to play defense. This may have been some humungous-brained effort to deny the Colts a 1st-and-5 opportunity (which would make it easy to run two three-yard plays to chew clock),

If so, it’s definitely something the innovator of Triple Man Three Deep One-on-Two would dream up.

Fortunately for the Packers, the Colts went on their own penalty spree, setting up 3rd-and-19. Pettine dialed up a picket fence of seven defenders 12 yards down the field, allowing the Colts to grab 15 yards on a screen and run. The Colts then went for it on 4th-and-4. Burton squared up to set a screen for Nyheem Hines on a rub-route concept the Packers simply had to see coming. But instead of switching off, Adrian Amos backed up to cover Burton while Jaire Alexander was screened, leaving Hines wide open for an easy first down. It’s as if no Packers defender ever saw a pick-and-roll on the playground growing up.

It looks like the Packers are rolling with Pettine for the rest of the season. The other NFC contenders could not be any happier about that decision.

“Nate Archibald” means “Off-Tackle Run”

Astute listeners noticed that Raiders quarterback Derek Carr called lots of basketball-themed audibles in Sunday night’s near-upset of the Kansas City Chiefs.

What’s more, careful observers felt that they had cracked the code by game’s end. “James Harden” was code for a running play, because of course Harden doesn’t pass (C’mon Coach is proud to be the 10,000th Internet outlet to make that joke), and the Raiders appeared to run to the left when a lefty like Harden, Chris Mullin or ambidextrous “Pistol Pete” Maravich was name-dropped.

Credit to Jon Gruden for coming up with an audible system that requires 20-something year old football players to remember details about NBA players like Mullin, who retired in 2001, or Maravich, who retired in 1980.

It’s clearly a case of mental energy well spent for, say, 21-year old Henry Ruggs to devote valuable preparation time to combing through Gruden’s near-mint 1974 ABA Topps basketball cards. “Let’s see, Artis Gilmore led the Kentucky Colonels in rebounds, which means … a checkdown to a sweep? No wait, that’s ‘Caldwell Jones,’ duh.”

Also, if half of Twitter figured out the Raiders audible system, it meant that the Chiefs defense was probably on the cusp of figuring out the Raiders audible system. Unfortunately, Patrick Mahomes led a game-winning Chiefs touchdown drive so we never got to see Tyrann Mathieu blow up a ‘Derrick Coleman.’”

Tune in next week when Jon Gruden switches the Raiders audible code to legendary Tour De France champions.

Special Teams Fiascos

You would think a former special teams coach like John Harbaugh would spot Tennessee Titans backup quarterback Logan Woodside sneaking onto the field as the punter’s “personal protector” on 4th-and-7 near midfield. Nope.

Woodside took a direct snap, rolled right and fired a first-down pass to Nate Westbrook. In fairness, Ravens defenders minded their assignments on the fake punt, so Westbrook was well-covered. Still, a fake punt attempt midway through the second quarter is probably worth a timeout, which would have caused the Titans to burn the play.

The Dallas Cowboys special teams can be counted upon to never mind their assignments, so the Minnesota Vikings appeared to have the perfect fake punt called when the Cowboys telegraphed their attempt to send everyone after Britton Colquitt.

Colquitt took the snap and floated a pass to uncovered and ignored gunner Kris Boyd for a 23-yard gain. Unfortunately, Boyd was flagged for an illegal shift. If you want to exploit the Cowboys special teams for hilarity and profit, you must at least be 10 percent more competent than they are.

Finally, C’Mon Coach has no beef with the Jacksonville Jaguars using wide receiver Keelan Cole to attempt a surprise first-quarter onside kick against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The Jaguars were going to need chicanery and luck to beat the Steelers anyway, and Cole’s wobbly beachball of a kick might well of squirted out of the hands of, let’s say, a Cowboys special teamer. (Atlanta Falcons special teamers would have run screaming into freeway traffic at the sight of it).

Doug Marrone appears to be doing a better job of coaching now that all hope is lost than he did when the Jaguars had a playoff-caliber roster in 2018.

That’s much more than can be said of Matt Patricia.