Bob Quinn, the reason the Detroit Lions fired Matt Patricia in the end: “It just wasn’t working”
Sheila Ford Hamp had been considering Bob Quinn and Matt Patricia’s fates for a while now—actually, since last December.
She was persuaded to take action, though, by the Detroit Lions’ appalling play in the past few weeks, which included crushing defeats to the Houston Texans and Carolina Panthers in the space of five days.
On Saturday, 43 games into Patricia and Quinn’s Detroit career, Hamp, who inherited the team’s controlling interest from her mother, Martha Firestone Ford, in June, fired them.
In addition, personnel executives Mike Disner, Kyle O’Brien, Lance Newmark, and Rob Lohman will share general manager responsibilities in their existing positions and report to team president Rod Wood. Offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell was named temporary head coach.
“It was a difficult choice because, as I mentioned, they’re both amazing individuals,” Hamp stated during a Saturday video conference. They have devoted countless hours of effort to this organization. It was obviously not working. When we recruited them, it wasn’t what we had anticipated.”
Under Quinn and Patricia, the Lions finished 13-29-1, and they are currently in the middle of their third straight losing year.
Patricia’s winning % of.314 was far less than that of Jim Caldwell, the player he succeeded. Quinn sacked Caldwell in 2017 after he finished 9-7; Caldwell’s 54.5% winning percentage was the highest of any full-time Lions coach during the expansion period.
The Lions will begin “an extremely thorough and comprehensive search” right now, according to Hamp, though she hasn’t specified exactly what she wants in either post.
Len Perna and Turnkey Sports are anticipated to assist the Lions in their hunt, but as Hamp stated, “We’re not going to just rely on one avenue.” Last year, Perna and Turnkey assisted Michigan basketball in acquiring Juwan Howard to succeed John Beilein.
“I meant what I said last December and I still mean it,” stated Hamp. “It was not what we wanted, and things were not going well. Our goal was to qualify for the playoffs. Things just didn’t seem to be going in the right direction, but I suppose there is still a slim mathematical chance.”