Fans put faith in Patricia
Lions followers excited for what coach can do
DETROIT — It’s going to be a long, tortuous week for Patriots fans, as in five days of fingerpointing, talk-show hollering and an old New England tradition: Blame pie!
But as you tie yourself up in knots trying to figure out how the
Pats lost 26-10 to the Lions at Ford
Field, it’s important to understand that an entirely differ- ent story line was being discussed here in Motown.
They were talking Matt Patricia, and in a good way.
The former longtime Pats assistant coach may have taken an 0-2 record onto the field in his new gig as coach of the long-suffering Lions, but everyone always knew, from the day he was named head coach, that this was going to be his true coming-out party.
Imagine Matt Patricia, the former student, upending his mentor, Bill Belichick, who happens to be the greatest coach in football history.
Look, Lions fans aren’t expecting to win a Super Bowl this season. What they’re looking for is a sign that the Lions are headed in the right direction.
Patricia beating Belichick would have been a sign from heaven.
As for Pats fans, if you thought Cordarrelle Patterson taking the opening kickoff out of the end zone and returning it to the Pats 42-yard line was going to be the opening bell to something special . . . well, no. Tom Brady opened the game going 1-for-4 on back-toback three-and-outs, thanks to a pair of seemingly catchable passes splitting Phillip Dorsett’s uprights on the second drive.
The Lions went conservative on their first drive, moving the ball to the Pats 21 on 12 plays and then settling for a 38-yard Matt Prater field goal on fourth-and-1. It’s what happened on Detroit’s second drive that lit up this barn. The officials initially ruled that Kenny Golladay had fumbled a short Matthew Stafford pass in the end zone, but a fired-up Patricia wound up and threw a 93 mph challenge flag with late break. The call was reversed, and now something shocking was happening: Patricia’s Lions were leading Belichick’s Patriots 10-0.
After another Prater field goal extended Detroit’s lead to 13-0, Brady moved the Pats from his 25 to the Detroit 16. But Sony Michel was dropped for a loss of 2, and the Pats had to settle for a 36-yard Stephen Gostkowski field goal instead of an energizing Brady-toanybody touchdown.
It wasn’t until 3:31 into the third quarter that Brady got the Pats into the end zone on a 10-yard pass to James White. And if history has taught us anything over the years, this should have been time for the opposing team to commence with the pants-wetting and lunch-losing.
Instead, Stafford capped a 10play, 75-yard drive by throwing a perfect 33-yard pass to Marvin Jones Jr.
When the fourth quarter began, Patricia’s Lions held a 20-10 lead over Belichick’s Patriots.
Earlier in the afternoon, a lifelong Lions fan named Mike Setlock and his two sons were standing at the corner of Brush Street and East Adams Avenue in downtown Detroit, smack-dab between the past and the future of Motown sports.
Behind them stood the center field entrance to empty Comerica Park, home of the Tigers, who had added another check mark to their can’t-end-soon-enough season by dropping a 3-2 decision to the Royals.
In front of them stood Ford Field, home of the Lions. And to 43-year-old Mike Setlock and his hugely optimistic sons — Ben, 12, and Eli, 7 — it didn’t matter one bit that the Lions, Lions, would be taking an 0-2 record into last night’s showdown against Bill Belichick’s Patriots.
You’ve heard of In Bill We Trust? Mike Setlock is placing three generations of trust in the hands of Matt Patricia.
“I still think we’re going 11-5 this season,” he said. “He brings, you like to think, the Belichick Way. People were pretty quick to point out, when we didn’t do very well against the Jets (in the season opener) that the family coaching tree of Belichick isn’t successful, and for a while I was, like, oh man, maybe he’s not the second coming.
“But we came into this believing in the beard and the pencil and the hooded sweatshirt,” he said, ticking off some of Patricia’s familiar Game Day accessories. “Look, I still think he’s going to be great.”
Amazing. For all the talk throughout New England about what Patricia’s exodus might mean for the Patriots, we forget there’s a port of call in Football America where the natives are delirious with optimism over the man’s arrival.
For Mike Setlock of Grand Rapids, Mich., it’s all about following in the footsteps of his father, Ray, a 76-year-old retired steelworker at the Rouge in Dearborn who was a starry-eyed 15-year-old when the Lions won the NFL championship in 1957. They haven’t won one since.
“We’re talking my 43 years and my dad’s 76 years, and now we’re talking my two kids,” Mike said. “I brought him to the Jets game. He wasn’t happy.”
So, Ray Setlock hungers for a return to the glory days of ’57, is that it?
“He does talk about it, sure, a little bit,” said Mike Setlock. “But it’s been dire here for so long ... he’s sour now. He really is. He’s been disappointed for so long. We’ve been disappointed for so long. But I still have the fire. He doesn’t have the same fire that I have.
“It was a two-hour ride from Grand Rapids and we talked about the Lions the whole way,” said Setlock. “We believe in the Lions.”
“Matt Patricia will figure it out,” said Ben Setlock. “He’s going to get it done.”