When they were together in Detroit, Matt Patricia and Darius Slay did not get along, to the point where the Lions traded Slay to the Eagles for far less than a cornerback of Slay’s caliber is worth, just because Patricia was eager to get rid of him. So when Patricia joined the Eagles’ coaching staff this offseason, many questioned whether he and Slay could work together.
Slay says they can.
On Friday, Slay said that before the Eagles hired Patricia, they touched base with him and he gave it his blessing.
“We talked about it during the offseason,” he said, via NBCSportsPhiladelphia.com. “They called me, and I was like, ‘It’s cool with me because I want to do what’s best for the organization. I always tell guys, ‘We’re in a rented seat, nobody’s in this seat forever.’ So I said, ‘Y’all got to do what’s best for the organization, and they asked would I be cool with it, and I said yeah. Me and him talked man to man. We’ve got a great understanding. We both want to win, he’s here to help me get better, he wants to get better as a coach, so we’re in good hands right now.”
Slay said he and Patricia both want to win, and that’s what really counts.
“It took a lot for both of us to talk, so we did a great job,” he said. “We communicate every day, we talk every day, we’re just trying to build everything going forward because at the end of the day we want to win. That’s his main goal and that’s my main goal, and we’re going to continue to keep building. It’s a great understanding. We both talked it out as grown men. He’s a man, I’m a man, so we just handled it. We respect each other enough to put everything aside and let’s move forward and get better.”