The Lions got tired of going 9-7 all the time under Jim Caldwell, who wasn’t terribly exciting in press conferences, and didn’t walk around with a pencil behind his ear.
But hiring a bright, young former Patriots assistant to go with their bright, young former Patriots personnel man as General Manager hasn’t worked out quite as they might have planned.
With yesterday’s loss to the Bears, the Lions have dropped to 3-8-1, and were officially eliminated from playoff contention before the Thanksgiving leftovers are gone.
“Obviously, I think everyone was disappointed,” Patricia said, via Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press. “But I’ll say this: I think that team, our team, it’s one of the toughest teams I’ve probably ever been around. This team fights like probably no other team I’ve ever seen.
“We got to find a way to win. We got to find a way to kind of break through that thing that’s stopping us right now and smash that so we can get this thing going. But you want to talk about a tough team, you want to talk about a team that fights, you want to talk about a team that’s going to try to do everything they can to win, that’s what we got right now.”
They may want to, but they haven’t.
The Lions are a sparkling 9-18-1 under Patricia, after going 36-28 in four years under Jim Caldwell and thinking it was time for a change.
Asked if he had been given any assurances about his future, Patricia declined to say.
“I mean, again, for me, we’re just pushing forward every single step of the way,” Patricia said. “So, go back to work next week and try to do a good job at building on this week, and try to go win. Everything we can. We’ve got a big one coming up, Minnesota, obviously it’s a big game.”
For Patricia, they all are.