Bill Belichick makes absurd statement about Matt Patricia's influence on Lions

Bill Belichick is one of the greatest head coaches in NFL history and a surefire Hall of Famer, but he did not have his best football moment when making a recent comment about the Detroit Lions and their former head coach, Matt Patricia.

While talking about the Lions on the "Let's Go" podcast, Belichick actually credited the current Lions offensive line, which is arguably the best in the entire NFL, to the  "fruits of the labor" of Patricia, who served as Lions head coach from 2018-2020.

"I think that the Lions have built a really good offensive line for their quarterback, and they couldn't get a lot of production in the red area last week but that's something that Matt Patricia started and now they're kind of getting the fruits of the labor from him," Belichick said.

Left tackle Taylor Decker, center Frank Ragnow and left guard Graham Glasgow all played under Patricia, but only Ragnow was drafted while he was there. Right tackle Penei Sewell and right guard Kevin Zeitler were brought in by current general manager Brad Holmes

If we're shelling out credit for Decker, Glasgow and Ragnow, former general manager Bob Quinn gets kudos for drafting them in the first place, although allowing Glasgow to leave in free agency isn't a great look.

Also more deserving of credit is former offensive line coaches Ron Prince and Jeff Davidson, and current offensive line coach Hank Fraley for helping to develop the group.

Want to give credit to Patricia for hiring Davidson and Fraley? Go for it, but that's a small shred of the total credit to be given out.

All Patricia really deserves recognition for is the disastrous tenure he had that led to a 13-29-1 record before he was canned during the 2020 campaign. If anything, Lions fans want to forget his stint existed, not thank him for it.

Respect to Belichick for trying to pump up his buddy, but he went a bit too far.