The Detroit Lions were supposed to begin Phase 3 of their offseason on Monday but instead, they pivoted to player-led meetings surrounding racism and the current protests happening across the country.
Late Tuesday night, coach Matt Patricia spoke with MMQB’s Albert Breer and discussed how the team shifted their team meetings away from football in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.
After watching the video of Floyd’s death, Patricia told Breer that “Honestly, I was just disgusted, angry, sad, depressed. The range of emotion, you watch the video, someone being murdered and you’re like … I didn’t even know how to process it. And the range of emotion I know I felt in watching that was only one-tenth of a fraction of a minute percent of what my players must’ve been feeling.”
Patricia discussed how he knew he was out of his depth on this topic and that the best thing he could do for his players was to put football conversations on hold and allow them to share their thoughts, feelings, and experiences related to the current events.
“It was just about listening and making sure we tried to get on and open it up for conversation, real conversation, truthful conversation, honest conversation, heartfelt conversation,” Patricia said. “And really, honestly, credit to my players for leading that. They’re the ones that really were able to get it to where it became so powerful.”
The Lions held both large (120 people) and small (only position groups) meetings, giving players multiple ways to share depending on their comfort level.
After two days of player-led conversations, and an off day on Wednesday, it’s still a bit unclear when the Lions will get back to football but Patricia is confident his players will help him decide when it’s the right time.
“When everyone’s ready to talk and move in that direction of football, we’ll move when the team wants to move,” Patricia said. “I think the one thing to understand there—we won’t move away from the conversation. It’s just, at some point, you’re having the conversation and then you’re also working on what we do, which is football.”
The Lions have not yet made a public statement regarding the events surrounding Floyd’s death or the fallout since, but one is expected to be made soon.