Adrian Peterson says Matt Patricia firing has made football fun again

It’s abundantly clear that few, if any members of the Detroit Lions were sad to see Matt Patricia depart as head coach.

Running back Adrian Peterson offered up a telling quote on Thursday regarding how things have changed around the Lions since Patricia was fired on Nov. 28. The veteran said thanks to the coaching change, football was “back to being fun” for him, via Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press.

Peterson has been around for a long time and played for a lot of different coaches, good and bad. If Patricia was having that much of an impact on him and his play, you know things were pretty bad.

Lions players have made it pretty obvious what they thought of Patricia. The picture is of a stagnant environment where players weren’t enjoying playing anymore. It’s easy to see why the Lions was so bad under Patricia, and why they looked so liberated in their 34-30 win under interim coach Darrell Bevell.