Roary
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- Mar 18, 2019
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The Lions signed veteran defensive end Robert Ayers during training camp in 2018. A day later, he was gone.
And while Ayers didn’t delve too deeply into the topic, he did point to problems with coach Matt Patricia being at the root of his swift departure.
“Let’s just say me and the head coach didn’t agree,” Ayers said in an interview with the Knoxville News Sentinel, via Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press. “There were some things he wanted me to do that I didn’t feel comfortable with. We just weren’t on the same page and it didn’t work out. He’s a tremendous coach, a brilliant mind, there’s a lot of things that was great about the Detroit Lions organization, but it was just something that we didn’t agree on. . . .
“We can leave it at that. I’m not going to get into specifics on what we didn’t agree on.”
His brief layover came during Patricia’s first year with the Lions. Ayers practiced once, but didn’t do any interviews afterward, and hadn’t talked about it since.
Patricia has been criticized on the way out the door by former Lions including Darius Slay and Damon Harrison, though General Manager Bob Quinn has defended Patricia’s methods. His 9-22-1 record is harder to defend, and if it doesn’t improve quickly, he might not get many more chances.