WXYZ — It started as all new regimes to, with hope.
Matt Patricia was brought in to take the lions to a level they’ve never reached before, but the culture shift instilled by Patricia, along with questionable draft picks by Bob Quinn, have the organization starting over once again.
“I meant what I said last December and I still mean it, things were not going well, it was not what we wanted, we were hoping to be playoff bound but things were not seeming to go in the right way,” Lions owner Sheila Ford Hamp said.
Patrica by many accounts is a good guy, and said the right things when he first got here. But talk is cheap, and when losses become the norm, words don’t give you much of a leg to stand on. There were questions about his ability to lead this team after last years 3-12-1 record, and Sheila Ford Hamp felt at the time that this was the year to back it up.
“We had hoped that this year, the third year, things would gel and Matt’s process and his coaching ability would come together in a good way, and then it just became clear it wasn’t working,” Ford Hamp added.
Now the Lions will embark on the franchises fourth general manager and eighth head coach in the last 20 years. The search will be in-depth, will input from many places, but the next team to come in will have to understand the effort it will take here, and embrace the challenges this particular franchise has.
“We can’t hide our past, that’s for sure, I’m very dedicated to turning this ship around and really making a difference and hopefully we won’t have to look back very much, we’ll just have to look forward,” Ford Hamp said.
