At his morning press conference, Detroit Lions coach Matt Patricia confirmed that defensive coordinator Cory Undlin will call the defense in 2020.
During a virtual press conference with Lions media on Sunday, Undlin was discussing where he would be coaching on game day — in the booth or on the field — and he mentioned said “I’ll be on the field, calling the defense, obviously”.
That caught the media’s attention because previously both he and Patricia had declined to commit to a stance on who would call the plays. But with the regular season rapidly approaching, the pair decided to get us up to speed with their plans.
“Cory and I had some great conversation before he jumped on the media (Zoom) with you guys yesterday,” Patricia said this morning. “I knew that was going to be a topic that everybody wanted to talk about. Look – there’s nothing really to hide here. Cory has been grinding away. He’s our defensive coordinator. He’s been working to understand everything that we’re doing defensively and obviously has his input.”
The Lions never divulged who was calling defensive plays during Paul Pasqualoni’s stint as a defensive coordinator, but Patricia has always claimed to want to have the freedom to operate in all phases of the game.
“He’s the defensive coordinator”, Patricia continued. “But certainly the best part of it for me as the head coach, if I want to jump in on offense, special teams or defense, I kind of have that ability at any time, which is always fun. It’s really nothing more than that. We talked about it yesterday and said, ‘Look, they’re probably going to ask, so just tell them. We’re going to be on the sidelines. We’re an operation like normal, and we’ll go forward from there.’”
NFL rules prevent us from divulging and schematic observations during training camp, but there have been some modifications that could possibly be attributed to Undlin. If these alterations carry over to the regular season, it should be a good indicator of Undlin’s influence on the defense.