Lions coach Matt Patricia comes from the Patriots organization, where information is king.
So after Jets players said they knew what his players were running in Monday’s thrashing, Patricia said it was more a triumph of coaching and execution, praising the Jets staff for taking advantage.
“I think we’re talking about something that’s pretty common to when you have to face an opponent, there’s going to be things there that you’re very familiar with,” Patricia said, via Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press. “Obviously, I would say, on both sides of the ball, there’s some high familiarity with some of the things that they do that we worked [in practice]. They just obviously out-executed us and that was the biggest problem.”
Because he’s a coach — and because it was such a savage beating — Patricia was also quick to credit Jets coach Todd Bowles, along with coordinators Jeremy Bates and Kacy Rodgers. Patricia has also installed screens around the Lions practice facility which show the coaches they’ll face that week, to emphasize the game-planning aspect of preparation.
“I would say that was very much, on the flip side, a [run game coordinator Rick] Dennison run game, it was a base offensive pass game,” Patricia said. “It was a Todd Bowles and Kacy defense.
“So I think on both sides of the ball we knew exactly what everybody was trying to do.”
That’s closer in style to Bowles’ explanation, which put the credit on preparation as opposed to anything nefarious.