The Lions rank 31st in the NFL in scoring defense, 30th against the pass, 27th in points allowed and 27th against the run. Defense is Matt Patricia’s specialty.
The Patriots won two Super Bowls with Patricia as defensive coordinator.
The Lions head coach, though, said he has no plans to take over the defensive play calling.
“I think it’s important for me to continue to try to do my best as the head coach to manage the game and make sure that I’m paying attention to all the phases and things that I see as the game goes on that need to be either corrected or addressed, or just kind of confirmed or handled,” Patricia said in a conference call Monday, via Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press. “So I don’t really see any of that changing right now.”
In fact, Patricia gave defensive coordinator Paul Pasqualoni, the former Syracuse head coach, a vote of confidence. Patricia said Pasqualoni is doing a “great job.”
“Certainly there’s situations where he and I have either talked about calls or there might be calls that I feel that we want to make in certain situations, but the good part about being the head coach is that you can make those calls in any three phases of the game,” Patricia said. “Obviously, a lot more of that can and will happen on defense, but coach Pasqualoni’s doing a great job of trying to get all that organized.”