Sean Payton says Matt Patricia still might land job with Broncos
BOSTON -- Matt Patricia interviewed for the Denver Broncos' defensive coordinator position last week. He didn't land the job, as it instead went to Vance Joseph. But the door isn't fully closed on Patricia potentially joining the Broncos.
Speaking at the NFL Scouting Combine on Tuesday, new Broncos head coach Sean Payton said that there's still a chance that he hires Patricia to join the staff in Denver.
Patricia, 48, is certainly not short on NFL coaching experience, having entered the NFL with the Patriots in 2004 as an offensive assistant. He switched to defense in 2006, and he began calling defensive plays in 2010, officially getting the defensive coordinator title in 2012.
He held that job through 2017, when he left New England to become the head coach of the Detroit Lions. After getting fired in Detroit, he returned to New England as a senior football advisor to Bill Belichick, before being tabbed by Belichick to run the Patriots' offense in 2022.
That experiment failed, with the Patriots ranking at or near the bottom of the league in most offensive categories.
The Patriots remedied that issue by hiring Bill O'Brien as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach this offseason. That left Patricia without a job in New England, thus leading to the search elsewhere.
Outside of Denver, though, no team has interviewed Patricia for a job. And with coordinator jobs filling up around the league, the reality for Patricia is that he may need to step back into an assistant's role before taking the helm for another team's defense in the NFL.
