Lions General Manager Bob Quinn made a strong statement when he fired head coach Jim Caldwell at the end of last season: 9-7 isn’t good enough.
Caldwell had gone 9-7 two consecutive years, and according to Quinn that simply wasn’t the kind of progress he wanted to see.
“I wanted to take this team to the next level,” Quinn said.
To take the Lions to the next level, Quinn hired his old friend Matt Patricia. Quinn worked for the Patriots from 2000 until the Lions hired him in 2016, and Patricia worked for the Patriots from 2004 until Quinn gave him the Lions job this year, so the two go back a long time. Patrica, according to Quinn, was the coach who would take the Lions to the next level.
And now, after the Lions’ Thanksgiving loss to the Bears, they’re 4-7. The Lions can finish no better than 9-7 this year, and given that they’ll be heavy underdogs against the Rams next week, they’re highly likely to clinch a worse record than the 9-7 mark that got Caldwell fired.
So how safe is Patrica’s job now?
The answer is probably that Patricia is safe. If Quinn were to fire Patricia after one year, Quinn would be admitting a huge mistake of his own, and that would be putting Quinn’s own job in jeopardy. The safest way for Quinn to keep his job is to hope that Patricia wins a few more games next year, when the Lions are playing a last-place schedule, and be able to claim his team is making progress.
But the reality is, it’s not progress until Patricia improves on the 9-7 record of the team he inherited, the 9-7 record that wasn’t good enough for Caldwell to keep his job. Patricia definitely isn’t going to do that this year, and he’s done little as a coach to inspire confidence he’ll do it next year, either.
