Matt Patricia

Thanks to Pat McNanoman, who wonders if Patriots defensive coordinator Matt Patricia would be the best fit for a team all-in with analytics, I checked him out.

Pat was probably talking about Patricia's engineering degree.  Engineers are math geeks.  And they build things.

I was pretty impressed by this guy, and what literally everybody who has ever worked with, over, or under him had to say about him.

My favorite?  "No ego."  Great start!  What this means is that he listens to suggestions.  When something he tried doesn't work, he doesn't stubbornly keep repeating it (like you do when you can't accept being wr...wrroo.......incorrect.  Like Kruger on the strong side, or the whole Ryan defensive system, for example).

Universally, everybody says that Matt is always the smartest guy in the room, can run ten projects at once, and can fix anything.

Before football, Matt Patricia didn't do a lot of actual engineering.  He was in sales, and had great people skills.  In order to sell products, he needed to understand and explain them.

That's meaningful, because he wasn't always talking to fellow engineers.  He had to explain sophisticated stuff to regular people.  

His football background started when he volunteered at some Podunk colleges to get his foot in the door (he had played center in college).  His first paying gig paid 8,000.00/year after two years of volunteering.

Under Bill Belichick, he worked his way up.  Belichick disciples don't have a great history, which is why I take all such guys with a grain of salt.

Patricia, however, is probably different, because he may be as smart as Bill Belichick.

Other coaches who leave him seem unable to be think like him.  They learn how to evaluate a roster and design schemes to exploit that talent in principle, but seem to fail in the application.  Also, to be fair, none of them got to take Tom Brady with them.

This Article illustrates how Patricia, under Bill's direction, altered the defense to compensate for the losses of Daryl Revis and their other top cornerback.  They went from man to zone coverage, and jacked up their pass rush.

Rex Ryan scooped Revis up and declared that the rest of the division was getting better while the Patriots were getting worse.

In reality, this Patriots defense is statistically almost identical to last year's.  Except it ranks sixth in sacks.

Nobody can guarantee that Matt Patricia can operate the same way, but he has a better chance than the other Belichick guys.  

And there's a great chance that he will seriously consider what the Browns offer, because he is so smart.

He is smart enough to like analytics, look at the current roster and see the talent already here, no personnel director or gm in place yet, answering directly to the owner, analytics doing all his grunt work for him, a guy who gets players signed to solid contracts quick, the draft picks, etc.

I believe Patricia is confident and has an imagination.  It doesn't take that much.

Will the Pryor experiment succeed, for instance.  Patricia can watch the films of his routes, and his four targets.  The first drop won't matter.  The big catch showed what he can do.  The blown route was a bad read.  Almost to be expected.  The pass that was broken up: He didn't need to leave his feet and should have reached for it rather than using his body.  Typical inexperience.  Fixable.  All fixable (or self-fixing) obviously.  

Matt can look forward to this guy in the spring.  And Gordon.  A proven commodity.  Wow the twin towers two number ones really?  And Hartline and Benjamin in the slot?

Wow I can run the offense Bill ran with Randy Moss!  OR a West Coast!

Let's check out the fans: "Who's going to throw it to them?"  Did something happen to McCown?  They didn't trade their second draft pick did they?  No there they are.  These people are real negative.  It's ok I can fix that.

Hmm...wtf Nate Orchard...Bryant, Kruger where are the sacks?  Oh yeah that Ryan defense.  Sure fixed Buffalo up haha!  Let's see...cornerbacks...safeties...two coverage linebackers...if this Gilbert guy gets in gear hmm...plenty...yeah...

At least, that's how a SMART candidate will think about this job.  

Patricia started out in 2004 as an offensive assistant.  In 2005 he was an assistant oline coach.  Then he coached linebackers for a long time, then safeties, then defensive coordinator for four seasons.  That's a good resume; a lot of experience, and he's made a lot of contacts.

He should already have his potential staff (and personnel guy) on speed dial.

I don't know how Patricia is as a talent evaluator, but he has to have learned a thing or two in New England.

The failure rate among Belichick proteges could help a little.  Ideally the other owners, like the majority of Cleveland fans, will prefer a "proven" fired head coach, too.  

Somebody will hire Chip Kelly and have to widen their doors to accommodate his head.  McDaniels might well be preferred because he was a head coach before (I don't dislike him any more myself).  Frontrunners will target coordinators from the other playoff teams as well.

Patricia's perceived value will rise or fall depending on how the Patriots do in the playoffs, which is pretty dumb but there it is.

So the Browns have a real chance at him.  

DePodesta doesn't have much data to work with on him, because what he's done in New England is inextricably linked to Bill Belichick.  But he can use his college transcripts to get a bead on how his mind works, and consider his sales history and stuff to grade his social skills.

Analytics is deeper than many people think.  For example, they say it can't measure heart, love for the game, coachability, or things like that, but that's not 100% true.

A geek like DePodesta can dig up "played with injury", disciplinary incidents, positive and negative comments (and even weight these comments by rating their source's reliability), progress in the weight room, rate of progress, and the list goes on.  If I could write code, I might have been doing analytics for a living myself, as it's integral to any form of analysis.

But I digress.  Until I change my mind again, I hope it's Matt Patricia.  He's got the brain, the personality, and doesn't trip over his ego.