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Some New York Jets defensive players said after Monday night's game that they knew some of the Detroit Lions' plays before Matthew Stafford even ran them, but new Lions head coach Matt Patricia tried to downplay it by saying it's not that uncommon for other teams to know what teams are going to run, according to Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press.
“I think we’re talking about something that’s pretty common to when you have to face an opponent, there’s going to be things there that you’re very familiar with,” Patricia said. “Obviously, I would say, on both sides of the ball, there’s some high familiarity with some of the things that they do that we worked [in practice]. They just obviously out-executed us and that was the biggest problem.”
The Jets smashed the Lions, 48-17, with Stafford tossing four interceptions in the blowout. Jets linebacker Darron Lee said afterward that they were calling out the Lions' plays coming up to the line of scrimmage and they knew Stafford's hand signals. They said they were prepared after an intense week of film study and felt confident coming into the game.
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Even though Patricia said this is common in the NFL, it still has to be a bit concerning, especially after his first game as an NFL head coach. Not often do players come out and say they knew exactly what the offense was doing.
Hopefully, the Lions are spending this week changing up their signals so this doesn't happen again. Detroit will try to bounce back against the San Francisco 49ers in Week 2.
