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ALLEN PARK – Matt Patricia made too many mistakes and was fired after just 43 games. But he didn’t do all wrong.
One of his best shots: trying his luck on a young special teams coach named Brayden Coombs.
Coombs had a good reputation for his work as an assistant in Cincinnati. But he was only 33 when Patricia hired him to replace John Bonamego as his special teams coordinator last offseason. There was no special teams coordinator in the league this young. Heck, there were only three coordinators of any kind this young.
It didn’t matter. Patricia believed in Brayden Coombs, hired him anyway, and now the Detroit special teams have really thrived. For this, Coombs is deeply grateful.
“He’s the first guy to really believe in me to be a coordinator,” Coombs said on a video call Tuesday night. “Gave me my first chance. So on a personal level, I am eternally grateful to him and I owe him a debt of gratitude. For some reason, maybe there were other people that I was closer to personally who had the same opportunity and didn’t give me that opportunity.
“So really grateful for Matt, and really painful and frustrating to see him come out this way. Because whatever the public perception or whatever, Matt Patricia is probably one of the most selfless people I know. All he cared about since I came here was the Detroit Lions, and he did everything he could to bring as much success to this team as he could, and obviously it didn’t work out that way. . But I have a lot of respect for the way he believed in doing things the way we did and I stuck to it until the end – he never flinched, never hesitated. It just didn’t work, but it doesn’t change how I feel about him. One of the toughest works I’ve ever seen, but really the # 1 thing I think it comes down to is just selflessness. It’s always been about the team, and it sucks, and personally, I really appreciate the opportunity to be here.
Coombs, the son of Ohio State defensive coordinator Kerry Coombs, was a lightly recruited defensive back who ended up in Miami, Ohio. He then moved on to wide receiver and caught 40 passes for 392 yards as a senior in 2009. He joined the Cincinnati Bengals staff the following season as an assistant coach and rose through the bottom ranks.
He worked with receivers early in his career, but also doubled as an advanced scout. It’s hard work because it involved working with the guys all week and then catching a plane to spot the Cincinnati players the following week. It was a lot of work and it also meant that he was never there on Sundays with his guys.
So when the Bengals asked him if he wanted to replace Paul Guenther as assistant special teams coach in 2012 – which would allow him to coach with Cincinnati on Sunday – Coombs jumped at the chance. Then he held that position for eight seasons, long to hold a position with a team anywhere in the league.
He thought he was ready to move up the ranks of the football food chain a few years ago but was overlooked by opportunities.
“Maybe it’s because of my age or maybe because of the way I train, I couldn’t answer that for you,” Coombs said. “But whatever those reasons, Coach Patricia didn’t hesitate.
Patricia interviewed Coombs last January, loved what he saw and took a chance on the 33-year-old. The decision paid off with almost general improvement. This is especially true in cover crews, where Coombs totally revised Detroit’s patterns. Tony McRae (before landing on the injured reserve) and Miles Killebrew became two of the best cover players in the league.
It helped turn freshman Jack Fox into one of the best weapons in the league. He’s got a huge leg – he’s averaging 50.3 yards per attempt, which puts him on track to break Sam Martin’s franchise record – but his crisp averages are what is most impressive. He scores 45.8 yards per attempt, just 0.2 yards off the NFL record set by Johnny Hekker in 2016.
In other words, the Lions punt team are changing positions on the field at an almost record high level.
The only real issues on special teams this year have been in the kicking game, where Matt Prater has only made 18 of his 25 attempts. At 72.0%, his accuracy is the second worst among qualified kickers. But even Prater pulled off a few clutch kicks, including a franchise record of 59 yards as time ran out against Washington. He also hit through a buzzer-batsman in Arizona and cracked the pipes on a 48-yard point after try that gave Detroit a one-run win with zeros on the clock in Atlanta.
For a team that has been poor on defense and inconsistent on offense, special teams have often stood out as Detroit’s best unit. Coombs is a big reason for that, as is Patricia, who gave him his first chance to lead teams.
“He’s never flinched since the moment I got here, and has supported me throughout,” Coombs said. “(He) let me do things my way, encouraged me on a daily basis, helped me when I needed it, but just gave me the keys and told me to go train our special teams. And, you know, I think with anyone, when somebody says, “You got this, I believe in you, here’s your opportunity”, we all appreciate that, right? It is human nature. So I’m really grateful to him for that. When someone who’s had the career they’ve had, has the CV they’ve got, and as smart as we all know, that meant a lot to me and always will be.
Coombs is clearly suffering from Patricia’s dismissal, but he’s also been around long enough to know how this business works. All that really matters is your record, the Detroit record isn’t good enough, and Patricia and Bob Quinn have paid the price.
With Patricia absent, Coombs expects to take on more strategic game decisions as a whole under interim coach Darrell Bevell. Detroit will face the Bears on Sunday in Chicago, which is still one of the trickiest places for special teams due to the swirling winds over Soldier Field.
“The bears, frankly, don’t really give a (expletive) about what’s been going on with us in the past five days,” Coombs said. “They are going to come and try to win the game. So we will try to win the game.
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