Eagles' Nick Sirianni Spoke to Darius Slay Before (Reportedly) Hiring Matt Patricia

Sirianni spoke to Slay before hiring Patricia as defensive assistant originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

The Eagles announced several coaching promotions and hires on Thursday afternoon and Matt Patricia wasn’t among them.

Not really.

But a story on the team website did list the former head coach and NFL defensive coordinator as a senior defensive assistant and during a news conference head coach Nick Sirianni said it’s “trending in that direction.”

Before the press conference even finished, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that Patricia to the Eagles was a done deal.

Patricia’s name was linked to the Eagles earlier this offseason as the team looked to replace a few positions on their defensive staff following the departure of Jonathan Gannon and Nick Rallis. While Patricia’s resume is lengthy as a former DC and head coach in the NFL, his past with one of the Eagles’ best players is rocky.

Pro Bowl cornerback Darius Slay hasn’t been shy about his feeling toward Patricia, who was his head coach for two seasons in Detroit. Slay has said he found Patricia to be disrespectful and had this to say about Patricia in 2020 to the Detroit Free Press.

"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. 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."

Yeah, Slay didn’t leave Detroit on the best terms with Patricia, who didn’t even last another full season with the Lions before getting fired.

So there’s an obvious concern to having Patricia on this staff but Sirianni said he has had conversations with Slay about the hire.

“Of course,” Sirianni said. “Like you do with anything, you go through and you talk to guys and you make sure that everybody is comfortable with it. I had conversations with Slay. Obviously, I had conversations with Coach Patricia. I know it’ll be a good working relationship for us when that happens.”

Patricia, 48, went back to New England as an advisor after the 2020 season and has been there ever since. Patricia was the Pats’ defensive coordinator from 2012-17 before ehe was hired as the Lions’ head coach. Before that, he worked his way up through the ranks under Bill Belichick.

So what does Patricia bring to the table in Philly?

“Obviously, his resume speaks for itself,” Sirianni said. “He gives you a great mind in there that’s done it at the highest level and so it gives you great ability to bounce ideas off of with the defensive staff. And it gives me another former head coach that I can bounce ideas off of with things, which I think will be very helpful.”

While the Eagles didn’t announce the hire of Patricia immediately, they did announce several promotions and hires:

• D.K. McDonald promoted to defensive backs coach

• Kevin Patullo promoted to pass game coordinator/associate head coach

• Tyler Scudder was promoted to assistant linebackers coach

• Taver Johnson was hired as assistant defensive backs coach

• Ronell Williams was hired as nickels coach

• Mike DiAngelo was hired as a defensive quality control coach

• Tyler Yelk was hired as the assistant to the head coach

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