Lions head coach Matt Patricia is a huge stickler for consistency. It’s one of the biggest focuses of his coaching philosophy. It’s also a huge theme in his press conferences when talking about his team. In their first media sessions since the bye week break, Patricia and his top assistant coaches harped upon consistency, well, consistently.
Patricia brought up consistency almost right away when asked about how he is hoping to fix the pass rush.
“I think it’s everything that we said before,” Patricia said on Monday. “We have to do a better job in the run game, and we have to settle some things down there that have hurt us and play with better fundamentals and technique and just be consistent. I mean, that’s the biggest thing for us right now.
We have some good run plays on tape and just unfortunately too many bad ones. We have to be consistent with it and try to get teams in a situation where they have to pass the ball more.”
Offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell also broached the subject of consistency in his own Zoom session.
“…but I think the thing that we’re really looking for and the thing that I’m preaching to these guys is just our level of consistency on offense,” Bevell said. “We know what we’re capable of, we know the players that we have, the things that we can do, but there’s just things that you need to do on a consistent basis down-in and down-out to help yourself be successful”
Defensive coordinator Cory Undlin stayed consistent to the theme in his presser on Monday as well. It came up right away when Undlin was asked what the biggest issue with his defense is after four games.
“I won’t say the biggest thing, we could go around on this for a while – the biggest thing is just the consistency part of it,” Undlin stated. “I can pull off six different plays, one time it goes for zero and then the next time it goes for six and then the next time it goes for seven, whatever it is. So, the big thing is watching with the players and going back through and having those discussions and then going out and practicing, we’ve just got to be more consistent up front, in the backend, linebackers, everybody.”
Patricia ended his question and answer period by explaining the overall issues with consistency throughout the team.
“I would say the good things on film for us, just right now, are too inconsistent. I think we’d like to really just make sure that the stuff that we’re doing well, we’d like to just see it every single play. If we could be consistent from that level, that would be a lot better for us.”
