One of the big criticisms of the Detroit Lions in the wake of a toothless defensive performance in the loss to the Oakland Raiders is the work of defensive coordinator Paul Pasqualoni and his in-game calls. The Lions defense was consistently out of position and vulnerable to the run in Oakland. Passivity has been a consistent — and accurate — criticism of the defense the entire season.
Many have called for Matt Patricia to take over the in-game playcalling for the defense. It even was asked of the head coach directly in Monday’s conference call with reporters.
“I think it’s important for me to continue to try to do my best as the head coach to manage the game and make sure that I’m paying attention to all the phases and things that I see as the game goes on that need to be either corrected or addressed, or just kind of confirmed or handled,” Patricia said. “So I don’t really see any of that changing right now.”
Patricia is spot-on in this assessment. His increased evolution as being the head coach of the entire team during a game is evident in the offensive and special teams improvements over his rookie year. It’s something Patricia noted as he continued his answer,
“Certainly there’s situations where (Pasqualoni) and I have either talked about calls or there might be calls that I feel that we want to make in certain situations, but the good part about being the head coach is that you can make those calls in any three phases of the game.”
Pasqualoni’s play calls have been suspect, but he’s not responsible for the players failing to execute. There’s only so much the coordinator can do when Jarrad Davis continually guesses wrong and runs himself out of plays. It’s not Pasqualoni getting snookered by play action and getting beat in coverage, as has happened too frequently with corners Rashaan Melvin and Justin Coleman, not to mention the linebacking corps.
Patricia taking over the in-game defensive calls won’t make the kind of changes fans are clamoring for. It’s worth revisiting after the season, but right now it just doesn’t make sense.
