New Detroit Lions head coach Matt Patricia knows a little bit about good quarterback play coming from the New England Patriots.

Tom Brady has helped lead the Patriots to eight Super Bowls over the last 17 years, and has won five of those.

"The quarterback is obviously one of the most critical positions on the field," Patricia told detroitlions.com.

"I say this stat all the time. Think of it this way, in the AFC since 2001, with the exception of two times, it's been one of three quarterbacks in the Super Bowl (Brady, Peyton Manning and Ben Roethlisberger).

"Those have been the three, with the exceptions of Rich Gannon and Joe Flacco. It just tells you how important that position is. The quarterback position is critical."

Even though Patricia is a defensive-minded coach, he says his relationship with Matthew Stafford in Detroit is going to be very important moving forward.

"That's something I'm really excited about," Patricia said. "From a standpoint of being able to sit down and watch film and go through film and from my standpoint say, 'Hey, let me show you what I see. Let me show you what defenses are looking at against you or let me show you this particular player defensively and look at this and try to broaden the way you look at it from that standpoint, too.'"

Having a different perspective like Patricia's being part of the conversation and week-to-week preparations could certainly be something that benefits Stafford at this point in his career. In Stafford, Patricia inherits a quarterback that was third in the NFL is passing yards (4,446) and fourth in touchdowns (29), while completing 65.7 percent of his passes last season with just 10 interceptions.

"I'm obviously thrilled to have that piece," Patricia said. "I'm very blessed to have that in place. I think from that standpoint it's a great situation to walk into."

But Patricia is also approaching this job with the reality that not just one man can win or lose a football game or help Detroit get over the hump. Patricia knows he has an important piece in place at quarterback with Stafford, but his task is improving the roster from 1 to 53 so both his quarterback and the team are in a better position to have consistent success.

"We're going to coach the whole team and it's going to have to be the team that wins it," he said. "It's not going to be just one guy.

"All the pieces are going to have to fit together and it might fit a little differently than it has in the past because what we're going to try to do is build some long-standing success, hopefully, and not kind of the flash in the pan."