LIONS HEAD COACH MATT PATRICIA CONFERENCE CALL QUOTE SHEET (VIA ZOOM)

October 15, 2020
Opening statement: “All right, good morning. (I) hope everybody is doing well – thought we had a good day of practice yesterday. Looking forward to getting out on the field today and having another one. Let’s just go right to questions.”
On T Taylor Decker’s early season success: “I think Taylor – he’s done a great job over the last couple years of just constantly getting better, improving and building on top of that. I would say that ‘consistency’ is a great word for him right now. I would say with his technique, some things with his fundamentals that he’s doing, and I would say that he came right into camp at an outstanding level with that. Really, early in training camp there was a lot of – he and Trey Flowers just working against each other, and I would say (they are) two of the guys that are more technically sound that we have on our team, more fundamentally sound, and you can just see the improvement that those two were making as the training camp went on, just working against each other at that high level every day. I think he’s carried that over into the season really well. I think there’s definitely some things that we have to improve, but I think he’s been consistent, I would agree with you on that. I think he’s done a great job.”
On elaborating on what he meant by having “guys trying to do less in order to play faster”: “I don’t think I’ll get into specifics, but I think that’s absolutely true. There are things that you dial back on and allow the guys to paly a little bit faster on the field, maybe a little bit less trying to process as some things are going on. I would say it’s probably across the board, maybe some things fundamentally we’re trying to do that we’re just not ready for that I think we just have to backtrack a little bit and do some other things well first, before we build on top of that. Some of that is scheme, some of it’s communication, which again, a lot of times if you’re out there in (a) heavy communication game, certainly like we were against the Saints, some of the stuff that we looked at earlier where that tends to be very confusing, we have to dial some of that back. Those are all things from the self-scout from the bye week we felt we could implement going forward and really just try to build on it as we go. We understand we’re going to need some of that stuff somewhere down the road. At this point, let’s just try to play some good football.”
On if that’s a pandemic-related correction: “Yeah, I mean, I can’t say that there’s not something involved there, but I think (the) pandemic has affected everything, so maybe we just have to do a better job. Like I say, better coaching there for me – just trying to see some of that stuff ahead of time. So it was good to have that bye week to look at some of that stuff I thought.”
On the difficulty of striking a balance between over-teaching and not teaching enough: “Yeah, I mean that’s some of the worst things you could do as a coach, I think when you’re sitting there in a game and you’re like, ‘Man, I wish we had this,’ or, ‘I wish we had been able to get this in.’ Again, as a coach, you’re just tying to do everything you can to help the players to be successful on the field. Certainly you feel helpless when you can’t do that or get things in a good direction. From that standpoint, it is a little bit of a balance, but I think at the end, we just have to do what’s best for our guys week-in, week-out. We definitely have to take a look at that.”
On if the amount he’s trying to teach different from previous years: “It’s a good question. I don’t know if I can answer that in a great way right now for you without having the time to look at really all of it. I would definitely say that – not unlike other years, I would say. Early in the season, in September, there’s certainly some things in there that you look at through the first month and say, ‘OK, did we like this? Did we do too much? Was this enough?’ You do do an evaluation of that for the first four games. Then obviously with everything else being shortened, some of that is a little more critical right now. But everyone is dealing with the same thing, so I don’t think that’s unusual for us. I just think that it’s a good opportunity for us to take a look at it and say, ‘OK, how can we improve? What can we do better?’ And try to analyze it the best we can.”
On if OL Frank Ragnow got injured during practice or if it was a lingering injury from the game against New Orleans: “Again, I’ll list it on the (injury) report as it was –  just something that popped up yesterday.”
On what he thinks has led to inconsistencies from QB Matthew Stafford and if there’s a way to correct it: “I mean Matthew Stafford’s a great player. I enjoy being around this guy every day. His leadership, the way he approaches it, the way he works – I think the entire team and the coaches, put us first and foremost, all of us have been inconsistent, and that’s what we’ve been talking about, trying to just settle down and play some good football. From that standpoint, I think all of us are looking at the same thing and we’re all just trying to get better. Matthew Stafford’s been doing this a long time, and I know that some of the things, obviously as a quarterback, you have to accept responsibility for, but I think it’s everybody around you, too. I think everyone’s got to just play better, certainly in all three phases, but if you’re talking offense specific, then I think those guys all around got to play better, too.”
On if the Lions considered selecting Jaguars CB C. J. Henderson in the draft and how close the decision was between him and CB Jeff Okudah: “Two really great corners. That’s all I’m going to say about that. As far as the Draft, we thought Jeff, obviously, was there and we liked him, so we took him. Two really good players, absolutely, coming out of college.”
On the injury update with CB Desmond Trufant: “Trufant’s been outstanding (with) everything that he brings every day, his work in the classroom, his veteran leadership, the way he prepares, the way he’s trying to get out there and compete. As far as the injury, it’s day-by-day. We’ll see how it goes and just proceed from there.”