Detroit Lions head coach Matt Patricia should sent a nice gift basket to New York Jets head coach Adam Gase every week, because were it not for Gase’s violations against the football code, we would probably be talking about Patricia as the worst head coach in football.
There are many reasons for this — Patricia’s insistence on playing tons of man coverage when it’s clearly obvious his team does not have the personnel to do that is a primary — but for now, we’ll stick with the epic unpreparedness of Detroit’s defense and special teams.
As Kyle Meinke of MLive.com pointed out following the Lions’ 34-20 loss to the Vikings on Sunday, Patricia’s team has a systemic issue with getting just 10 men on the field on multiple occasions. It happened twice last week against the Colts, including on an Indianapolis two-point conversion, and it happened once more on this Dalvin Cook 70-yard touchdown run in which Cook probably would have knifed through Patricia’s defense had there been 14 guys on the field. Cook, after all, is the defending NFC Offensive Player of the Week, following his four-touchdown performance against the Packers in Week 8.
Right before the play starts, you can see linebacker Jamie Collins — who’s probably responsible for the count — motioning to the sideline that his defense is one man short. And then, it was Cook off to the races.
Top 2 back in the league and he ain't #2
📱: https://t.co/EYGyNNxBPN pic.twitter.com/32SPgVFJn3
— Minnesota Vikings (@Vikings) November 8, 2020
It was part of a historic two-game stretch for Cook, who put up 206 rushing yards and two rushing touchdowns on 22 carries.
Cook became the 3rd player in @NFL history with 225+ scrimmage yards and 2+ TDs in consecutive games, joining Deuce McAllister (2003) and @ProFootballHOF Jim Brown (1963). https://t.co/A7vDbk63xP
— NFL345 (@NFL345) November 8, 2020
“I had a guy that was in the hole,” Cook said after the game. “I knew if I broke his tackle, there were some guys mis-fitting, and I had some daylight.”
That would be defensive lineman John Penisini, who can be seen flailing helplessly at Cook before Cook hit his second gear. The Lions had their front tilted to the defensive left side, which gave Cook another advantage as he ran to the light side, but maybe that eleventh guy would have helped.
Maybe.
“Those are things we got to get fixed,” Patricia said. “We got to make sure we handle those better and communicate on the sideline better when those things happen. If we have an injury or if we have a situation where something comes up, to make sure everybody’s tapped in with that. We got to get it right from a coaching standpoint.”
Now we know the formula. #Skol pic.twitter.com/9JkexszX9L
— Minnesota Vikings (@Vikings) November 9, 2020
We do know the formula: Play the Lions’ defense, and match wits with Matt Patricia as often as you can.
