Detroit Lions head coach Matt Patricia opened his Monday press conference by mentioning that there were some good things that showed up on the tape of Sunday's 24-9 loss to the Vikings. They were simply outnumbered significantly by the bad.
"Didn't show up on Sunday enough all the way around," Patricia said.
The Lions' first-year head coach didn't mince words about his team's performance.
Here are the key questions from his press conference:
What was the biggest issue on tape looking at the 10 sacks the Lions allowed in the game?
"If you have that amount of sacks that you're giving up in a particular game and it's one thing, you know, we try to get that one thing fixed in the game," Patricia said. "What was happening was more multiple things."
That's obviously a worse scenario to try and evaluate on a Monday and go about starting to correct. From the offensive line to the quarterback to the receivers, Patricia called the 10 sacks a complete unit failure.
Patricia said they have to get some of those issues fixed this week because the offense can't play the way they did in Minnesota and expect to win many games the second half of the season.
What was the overriding theme for Patricia going back and watching the tape?
Mostly a prevailing lack of fundamentals and execution, especially upfront along the offensive and defensive lines.
"I would say the point of emphasis right now is fundamentals," Patricia said. "Some of our fundamentals got out of whack. Some of our techniques stuff isn't necessarily where it needs to be on a consistent basis."
It's hard this time of year when teams are in heavy game plan mode to labor on the fundamentals, but it's something Patricia seemed adamant about doing this week.
How do the Lions get better fundamentally at the midseason point?
The team will dedicate time in practice to working on some of those things this week, per Patricia.
Showing some better examples in the film room and breaking it down in the classroom is another way Patricia and his staff hope to get some fundamental coaching points across to the players this week.
The Lions went back to focusing on some of the fundamentals after their 0-2 start and had probably their best performance of the year Week 3 in the dominating win over New England.
"I definitely saw some things on film (Sunday) with all of the issues we had, I'll start with myself, I have to coach it better and I have to teach it better, but I think just from the standpoint of the fundamentals there were definitely some things that we could have done that would have helped us have more of a chance," Patricia said.
How does Detroit's talent level stack up in the NFC North after two division games?
The Lions are currently last in the division at 3-5, and play the division leading Chicago Bears (5-3) on the road Sunday. The Lions are 1-1 in the division.
"I think we have good players on this team, I really do," Patricia said. "Fundamentals and execution is what's holding us back right now. That's where we have to start."
The second quarter of the season for the Lions was better than the first, but how does this team take a bigger leap forward in the season's third quarter, starting Sunday in Chicago?
The Lions opened the year 1-3 in the first quarter of the season. After winning their first two games in the second quarter, they've dropped two straight and finished that four-game stretch 2-2.
While technically better than the first quarter of the season, the manner in which the Lions lost the last two games – being thoroughly outplayed by both Seattle and Minnesota – has some wondering if this is a football team getting better as the season progresses, which has always been a mandate of Patricia's.
"I thought through the course of last week we did have some good practices and had gotten better in a couple areas, but it didn't show up on Sunday," Patricia said. "That'll kind of be the next step. Make sure that transfers from the course of the week through to the weekend and into the game on Sunday. We just have to do a better job of that and get it right this week."
The goal for the third quarter is obviously to get off to a good start vs. Chicago and try to improve on the 2-2 record from the second quarter.
The reality of the current situation is that the Lions really have no choice to do so if they want to still be in the hunt after the third quarter. It certainly won't be easy, however. Detroit's third quarter consists of matchups against Chicago (5-3), Carolina (6-2), Chicago (5-3) and the Los Angeles Rams (8-1). The good thing is that three of those games are at home.
Patricia said the team has to get back to building off the positives they saw to start the second quarter of the season and not how they ended it the last two weeks.
"The things about it is we can't go backwards," he said. "I can't just pick up where we left off from one of those winning weeks we had.
"We just have to take this week and this game and fix this stuff first and make sure that we're better next week with the things we didn't necessarily do well this week and hopefully that'll give us enough to give us a chance to win this Sunday and then build."
