Matt Patricia: No micromanaging with my Lions staff

Orlando, Fla. — Lions coach Matt Patricia plans to have a hand in everything, but when it comes to his coaching staff, he doesn’t want to micromanage.

And while he has said he’ll reserve the right to make a play call, on offense, defense or special teams, Patricia confirmed those duties will primarily fall to his coordinators, Jim Bob Cooter and Paul Pasqualoni.

“That’s the way I think it should be done,” Patricia said. “That’s the way I was treated for all the years in New England.”

Pasqualoni, who coached the defensive line at Boston College last season, was instrumental to Patricia early in his career. While serving as Syracuse’s head coach, he hired Patricia as an offensive assistant in 2001, his final college job before joining New England’s staff three years later.

After being fired by Syracuse in 2004, following a 13-year run at the school, Pasqualoni spent eight of the next 11 years working in the NFL. The first five of those seasons, he worked under Bill Parcells or someone from his coaching tree.

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Patricia, meanwhile was groomed under Bill Belichick, another branch from the Parcells’ tree.

“Obviously, I worked for (Pasqualoni) for a time at Syracuse, but then when he left Syracuse he worked for a very familiar system working for coach Parcells, and kind of the avenue he took is very similar from a fundamental standpoint,” Patricia said. “So there's a lot of things that we already just have a common ground, from that standpoint. There might be some scheme questions from things that I've done in the past that he'll ask or we'll have to go over, but from that standpoint real confident in that we hired him to do that.”

There is one assistant who might have to worry about Patricia being too hands-on, at least according to the coach. Watch out, Al Golden.

“I think it'll always be very difficult for me not to gravitate towards defense, in general, probably the linebackers in particular,” Patricia said. “I mean that's just kind of that's your comfort zone, that's where you tend to go, probably drive the position coaches a little bit crazy more than not. But, again, I'm excited to kind of be involved in all facets of it.”