| Detroit Free Press
What’s next for Detroit Lions after firing Bob Quinn, Matt Patricia
Free Press sports writers Dave Birkett and Carlos Monarrez weigh in Nov. 28, 2020, after the Detroit Lions fired Matt Patricia and Bob Quinn.
Sheila Ford Hamp made an interesting admission during her video conference to announce the firing of Matt Patricia and Bob Quinn on Saturday: That she thought the Detroit Lions’ talent was much better than their record.
“I think in many ways, I think we’ve got a really talented team, or a talented team,” she said. “And I think we should have come together better than we have, and so I guess we just felt like the leadership wasn’t getting that job done.”
Patricia’s fate as head coach was sealed even before last week’s Thanksgiving loss to the Houston Texans, when the Lions lost their fifth game by double digits this season.
But Hamp spent time Friday mulling Quinn’s future before deciding to also part ways with the fifth-year general manager.
Quinn’s track record as GM was mixed. No one would argue he assembled a championship-level roster, especially on defense, where the Lions’ issues seemed to get worse by the week. But there were enough bright spots that his dismissal may have largely been about one or two poor decisions.
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In the draft, which is the lifeblood of every professional sports franchise, Quinn objectively fared well with his first-round picks, nailed several third-round choices and had plenty of swings and misses elsewhere.
Taylor Decker, the Lions’ first-round pick in 2016, has emerged as one of the NFL’s better left tackles, and he recently signed a four-year extension that should keep him in Detroit, playing a premium position, through at least 2024. The 16th pick of the draft, Decker looks even better when compared to the 10 players taken immediately after him. Three of those 10 already are out of the NFL, and Decker easily is the best of the other seven.
In 2018, Quinn hit another home run with center Frank Ragnow. The 20th pick of the draft, Ragnow will not go down as the best pick of the second half of the first round; Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson was the 32nd pick that year and already has an MVP. But he has outperformed every other first-round lineman not named Quenton Nelson. Of the 10 players taken immediately after Ragnow, only receiver Calvin Ridley and linebacker Rashaan Evans are off to similarly solid starts in their careers.
Quinn whiffed on 2017 first-round pick Jarrad Davis, who went 21st overall, six spots ahead of cornerback Tre’Davious White and nine spots ahead of outside linebacker T.J. Watt. And the argument against last year’s first-round pick, tight end T.J. Hockenson is more about position value than performance. Defensive tackle Ed Oliver has had a quiet second season, linebacker Devin Bush is out with a knee injury and pass rusher Brian Burns had a big game against the Lions earlier this month. Hockenson is a similar, if not better player, than all three, but he is of no use to the Lions’ undermanned defense.
Ultimately, Quinn’s draft legacy may come down to this year’s pick, when he passed on quarterbacks Tua Tagovailoa and Justin Herbert to take cornerback Jeff Okudah at No. 3. It’s far too early to judge Okudah as a player, but Okudah’s performance matters less than leaving a potential franchise quarterback on the board at a time when some thought it was wise to plan for the future. One caveat: I’ve never gotten the impression that ownership had the appetite for a rebuild, though Hamp insisted Saturday that incumbent QB Matthew Stafford’s future in Detroit will be decided by the next regime.
As for the rest of the draft, Quinn deserves credit for mid-round choices such as Graham Glasgow, Jonah Jackson and Kenny Golladay, who might go down as the best choice of his tenure, though his unsettled contract situation remains a sticking point. Tyrell Crosby has outperformed his draft position as a fifth-round choice, and Amani Oruwariye is trending that way, but the Lions have not had any late-round home runs who can turn a franchise’s fortunes, and Quinn did draft a long snapper.
Worse, for as well as Quinn has done in Round 3, his second-round picks were disastrous. Teez Tabor is out of the league, Jahlani Tavai has struggled mightily, A’Shawn Robinson left in free agency, and Kerryon Johnson’s injuries necessitated the Lions take another running back in Round Two this year.
Outside of the draft, Quinn was equal parts up and down when it came to other roster building methods such as free agency and trades. The Lions managed the salary cap well throughout Quinn’s tenure as GM and currently have about $14 million in cap carryover for 2021, something that will be important in a shrinking salary cap environment.
I’ve never believed in splurging in free agency, at least not on the mostly mediocre players teams choose not to re-sign, and for that reason I can’t be too critical of Quinn;’s lack of splash moves. Quinn made some questionable decisions for sure, including signing Halapoulivaati Vaitai and letting Graham Glasgow sign with the Denver Broncos, though the second half of that equation was due in part to Patricia’s New England-learned philosophy that guards are not worth paying.
Still, giving Vaitai, who was never a full-time starter with the Philadelphia Eagles, a $50 million deal, was a head-scratcher, as was the Lions’ obsession with aging players in general, and ex-Patriots in particular, for their defense.
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Quinn’s best free agent signing was his first, inking Marvin Jones to a reasonable contract days after Calvin Johnson officially retired. But the Lions have little to show for their other big-money deals. Rick Wagner never lived up to the money he made, T.J. Lang was a good player who spent most of his Lions career hurt, and Trey Flowers is the Lions’ best defensive player, though injuries (more so than his enormous $90 million price tag, which has not restricted the Lions from making other moves) leave his signing in question.
Quinn and his scouts did a good job mining the waiver wire and undrafted free agency for talent such as punter Jack Fox and tight end Robert Tonyan, who has developed into a solid player, albeit for the Green Bay Packers. And he spent wisely — and typically early — to secure his own free agents (Decker, Stafford, Darius Slay, Quandre Diggs) at what have turned out to be below-market rates.
But his biggest failing from a roster building standpoint was acquiescing to Patricia’s ego when it came to shedding talented players Patricia decided he could do without, guys such as Slay, Diggs and even Golden Tate. Certainly, there’s a line every player can cross that makes him not worth the hassle in the locker room, but all three of those players were valuable contributors whose personality alone was not reason to send them packing, and doing so left the Lions undermanned at their positions.
[ Darius Slay: I don’t respect Matt Patricia because of 2018 incident ]
For as much good and bad as there was with the roster — Quinn built an underrated offensive line and drafted promising receivers (including, amazingly, Travis Fulgham), but he should know slow linebackers don’t work in the NFL, no matter the system — the final piece of the evaluation puzzle with Quinn was the man the Lions are now looking to replace.
Quinn led the charge to hire Patricia, so the organization’s 13-29-1 record since 2018 is partly of his doing. Patricia was the hot coaching commodity during the 2018 offseason. He would have ended up with the New York Giants if not for his friendship with Quinn. But while the Lions got their man that year, his tenure was an unmitigated disaster.
Given Quinn’s ties to Patricia in New England, it’s not unreasonable to think he should have better known how Patricia’s tough-guy act would play in a locker room that loved Patricia’s predecessor, Jim Caldwell, and maybe known about Patricia’s South Padre past, the sexual assault allegations that I believe doomed his tenure in Detroit.
I still believe Quinn made the right decision to move on from Caldwell, after Martha Firestone Ford fired Martin Mayhew and Tom Lewand midseason in 2015. A new GM is always going to want his own coach at some point, and while the Lions were more competitive under Caldwell, they still were middling in many ways.
Quinn spearheaded some major improvements in the organization, bringing the team’s nutrition, wellness and analytics departments up to modern NFL standards, and he left some good people behind in the front office, including chief lieutenants Kyle O’Brien, Lance Newmark and Rob Lohman.
But in Hamp’s final evaluation, there was no way she could entrust Quinn with another coaching search. The first one went horribly, and there was too much at stake to let him make the hire again.
Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.