While his name was being floated as potential head-coaching candidate, with at least one team interested in giving him an interview, Matt Patricia said that he was simply going through his normal Monday routine.
According to multiple reports, the Rams have put in a request to meet with the Patriots defensive coordinator about their head-coaching vacancy.
"I haven't heard anything," Patricia replied when told of the report. "We're just kind of working on yesterday's game, and getting ready for moving forward. I know there's a process in place with that that the league follows. For myself, [I'm] just really kind of focused on what we're doing right now with the team moving forward. I'm in a normal Monday routine, which is great for me."
Regardless of what Patricia has heard, it sounds like he could be sitting down with the Rams very soon. When he does, he'll be able to lean on his experience from this time last year -- when he interviewed for the Cleveland opening -- to help him handle the process while simultaneously preparing for the Divisional Round matchup that the Patriots will host on Jan. 14.
"I think that process last year is a great process to go through as a young coach," Patricia said. "That was extremely new to me, and learning about a lot of different organizations in the league, and how they work, and how they're structured, and kind of the football ins and outs from maybe another different side of it that you see, maybe you don't study, you don't look at. But there's a whole other aspect to an organization and how everything's run. That was a great learning experience from that standpoint, and you try to, like everything, dive into it, and learn as much as you can about it. That was pretty neat, pretty interesting from that standpoint.
"I think the balance of it is like anything. You try to balance everything as far as what you're doing, you just understand that, 'What is the priority?' And the priority is going to be, above everything else, what this season's about, what we're about here, trying to win, and everything moving forward for the next game that we have to play, which is the most important thing. Nothing gets put above that. That's the most important thing that we have to focus on . . . Everyone's working so hard right now, you never want to lose the task at hand."