NFL Power Rankings, Week 5: Cowboys free-falling, Bills stay perfect

Heading into the season, Matt Patricia was on quite the hot seat for the Detroit Lions. He was brought in to replace Jim Caldwell, who really wasn’t a bad coach at all. In four seasons with the Lions, he was 36-28 and had just one losing season — which was in 2015 when they were 7-9. Other than that, he was 11-5 in 2014 and 9-7 in both 2016 and 2017.

As for Patricia, the former New England Patriots head coach has yet to taste success. His best campaign was in 2018 as a rookie when he had a 6-10 record. He followed that up with a 3-12-1 record in 2019. Now in 2020, he’s off to a 1-3 start after their latest loss to the New Orleans Saints. For those scoring at home, that’s a 10-25-1 mark for Patricia compared to that 36-28 for Caldwell. Simply put, it looks like a huge mistake to have moved on from the former coach for Patricia.

Of course, they were close this week. And they were close in Week 1 against Chicago. The only time they weren’t close was in Week 2 when the Packers put up 42 on them and doubled up their score. But the NFL is full of close games, and it’s clear Patricia hasn’t figured out how to win those.