Based on all the NFL jobs Matt Patricia has had in the last few years, the Eagles’ decision to fire him makes no sense.
The Philadelphia Eagles switched defensive play-callers in the middle of the night, giving Sean Desai’s old job to Matt Patricia before their “Monday Night Football” game in Seattle against the Seahawks.
There are a few things that make the choice strange. One, teams that are pretty much certain to make the postseason don’t usually change coaches this late within the season.
The Eagles’ defense has been bad lately, but they’re still 10-3 and stand a good chance to win the NFC East and the right to play their first playoff game at home.
Second, the Eagles are giving their defense their next coach who hasn’t had much success in the last five years, which makes Patricia’s choice questionable.
Given that Patricia was a big part of the Eagles’ Super Bowl win after the 2017 season, they should know exactly what they’re getting.
Patricia got beat up by Nick Foles or the Eagles’ offense, as well as by almost every other attack the Patriots played that season. He then went to Detroit to be the head coach of the Lions for the 2018 season.
Patricia never could put together a good defense in Detroit, and he made fun of a lot of players, including Darius Slay, a cornerback for the Eagles now.
Because of how poorly teams have done when he was in charge, there isn’t much reason to trust him to run the Eagles’ defense.
Going back to 2017 will help you understand what a terrible year it was for the Patriots’ defense.
As of November 2018, said the Patriots were placed 30th in success rate (44.3%) and 26th in expected points allowed (0.029) per play.
The 31st worst team in terms of yards per play (5.7) that season. When Patricia was in charge of the Lions from 2018–2020, they were ranked 31st in anticipated points gained per play (0.107), the same things happened there as well.
This week, Matt Patricia took over for Sean Desai as the defensive play-caller for the Philadelphia Eagles.
The team said on Sunday that Patricia would call the plays and tell the “green dot” of the defense what to do, commencing with Monday night’s game towards the Seattle Seahawks.
A source told CBS Sports Lead NFL Reporter Jonathan Jones who Desai will still be the defensive coordinator, but he will move to the bench while Patricia calls the plays.
After Jonathan Gannon left for Arizona to become head coach of the Cardinals, the Eagles signed Desai on a four-year deal this summer.
Desai will be moving to the coaching box this week. This is the position in which called defensive plays while he was the Chicago Bears’ defensive coordinator in 2021.
The Eagles changed their defense after two bad games against the 49ers from San Francisco and the Dallas Cowboys. But there were problems before those two games.
The Eagles are 32nd in the NFL in touchdown defense (54.8%) and red zone defense (78.3%) since Week 8. They also give up the most yards in the league (428.2) and passing yards (297.8) per game.
Philadelphia is 30th in the league in points allowed per game. They have also given up 30 or more points in three straight games for the initial time since 1967.