Eagles

Darius Slay Says it’s “Cordial” with Matt Patricia

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Jun 16th, 2023 · 10:26 AM EDT

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We’re scraping the bottom of the barrel for content on a summer Friday, but this is probably worth sharing.

Jenna Malinoski at the Detroit Free Press caught up with Darius Slay at Megatron’s charity golf event, and asked about Matt Patricia:

Slay told the Free Press in 2020 that he did not respect (Matt) Patricia after an incident between the two during Patricia’s first season as head coach in 2018.

Now that the two are once again on the same team, Slay said the reunion has been “cordial.”

“It’s another day at the office,” Slay said. “We both got the same goal, just going out there to compete and win a championship, so that’s the main focus.”

We never dove into this story, but the two really did not get along in Detroit, where Patricia was the head coach from 2018 to 2020, before going back to New England.

Dave Birkett at the Free Press wrote this in 20202 about the incident that fractured the relationship:

Slay, a three-time Pro Bowler, told the Free Press on Thursday that his lack of respect for Patricia stems from an incident that happened in training camp during Patricia’s first season as Lions coach in 2018.

“He told me in front of the whole team, in the team meeting room, showed clips of me in practice getting a ball caught on me or so in practice,” Slay said. “I posted a picture (of a wide receiver on social media), and he told me, stop sucking this man’s private. So I’m like, ‘Whoa.’ I’m like, ‘Hold up.’ Where I’m from, that don’t fly. Cause I wouldn’t say that to him. I wouldn’t say to him to stop you know what to Bill Belichick. I wouldn’t do that. That’s just not me as a man. That’s disrespectful to me and so from there on it was done with.”

Slay was traded in March of 2020, so it’s been three seasons since he played for Patricia. Presumably, he won’t even have much interaction with Patricia in Philadelphia, who was brought in to be a “Senior Defensive Assistant.” That’s further down the food chain than head coach Nick Sirianni and defensive coordinator Sean Desai, and Slay’s position coach will be D.K. McDonald.

Notably, the Eagles will have senior assistants on both sides of the ball this year. It’s Patricia on the defensive side and Marcus Brady on the offensive side. That’s something the beats will probably dig into during training camp, i.e. what is the extent of Brady and Patricia’s involvement in game planning, how do they participate in practices, and other things that are hard to determine.