Could Matt Patricia Have Just Got His Guy?
If you haven’t heard as Lions fans, Matt Patricia is a defensive minded coach and he wants the Lions to win promarily because of the defensive side of the ball. The Lions finished close to the bottom in alot of defensive metrics and a jump from the bottom of the pack to the middle could and should mean 2 or more wins. Well controlling the field from the LB corp could the area that coach Patricia may have been a point of significance because he just poached or immediately scooped up the Inside LB coach for the AFC conference contender Tennesee Titans. Here’s more on it…
Could Matt Patricia Have Just Got His Guy?
UPDATE [8:15 PM]: It has now been reported that McKenzie was fired per Paul Kuharsky.
So that clears up the speculation about the nature of McKenzie’s departure. We will probably never get the details for the reasons behind his firing though. The inside linebackers as a position group generally performed well during his two years in Tennessee, though McKenzie was given a lot of talent to work with in first round pick Rashaan Evans, veteran Wesley Woodyard, and Jayon Brown.
Best wishes to Tyrone on his new opportunity in Detroit.
UPDATE [4:55 PM]: McKenzie will be joining the Detroit Lions coaching staff according to 104.5 The Zone’s Brent Dougherty. The Lions hired former Eagles defensive backs coach Cory Undlin to be their defensive coordinator last week so McKenzie will likely be making a lateral move here.
As @glennonsports reported, Tyrone McKenzie is leaving the Titans. McKenzie will join the Detroit Lions coaching staff.
— Brent Dougherty (@brentdougherty) January 29, 2020
Lions head coach Matt Patricia was McKenzie’s first position coach when he got drafted in the NFL by the Patriots back in 2009 so there is the obvious connection…
McKenzie had been mysteriously removed from the team’s online listing of current coaches earlier in the week so this confirms that the removal was not an accident. Whose idea it was for the team and McKenzie to part ways remains to be seen.
From an outsider’s point of view, it seemed like he had done an excellent job with the team’s inside linebackers since leaving the Rams to join Vrabel’s staff in 2018. Jayon Brown’s level of play continued it’s upward trajectory and young linebackers Rashaan Evans and David Long were both able to make early impacts. I liked McKenzie when he was hired based on early interviews and thought he would one day make a good defensive coordinator candidate. That might still be true, but we know it won’t be here in 2020 now.
There are plenty of avenues for speculation about the reasoning behind his sudden departure. Did he get passed over for the defensive coordinator position and ask for his release out of frustration? Was Vrabel not entirely happy with his performance? Maybe McKenzie just wanted a fresh start somewhere else?
Why do we say that this is Matt Patricia guy more so than the new defensive coordinator Corey Undlin, because, we think, that Patricia feels that we have a LB group that can be the core that leads the Lions into the future and make vast improvement from game to game as well as year to year. So, it appears that McKenzie is the guy to get the best out of our guys because he’s clearly done it before; but can he do it under the “win now” edict?
What do you think? Is it unrealistic to expect such a vast improvements from Jarrad Davis, Jahlani Tavai and others?
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