By Michael Stets
DETROIT — As far as Lions second-year linebacker Jarrad Davis is concerned, once you don the Honolulu blue and silver, you become a family member. And that, of course, includes new head coach Matt Patricia, who came under fire last week after a report unearthed a dismissed sexual assault indictment from 1996.
Davis, 23, who was attending the sixth annual Taste of the Lions event at Ford Field on Wednesday evening, said the coach has his full support.
“Honestly, once coach Patricia came in and put that Lion on his chest like everyone else, he was one of us,” said Davis. “So, we got his back in everything he goes through and we expect the same from him. And he comes to work every single day to get better and that’s what we do too. It’s a team sport, and like I said, once you put that Lion on, man, he’s family.”
Davis said he “didn’t really have a reaction” when Patricia addressed the team, but said he and the team knew they had to move forward and continue to prepare for the upcoming season.
“He talked to us about it,” Davis said, “and honestly, we just knew that we had to move on. We had to continue working.”
Back in March of 1996, Patricia and friend Greg Dietrich were arrested during spring break while in South Padre Island, Texas, after a 21-year-old woman accused the pair of breaking into her hotel room and sexually assaulting her. Patricia and Dietrich, who were students at Rensselaer Polytechinc Institute (and members of the football team) at the time, who both indicted on one count of aggravated sexual assault in August of that same year. But the case was eventually dropped in January of 1997 after the prosecution moved to dismiss the case due to the accuser not returning to court to testify.
“Thankfully, the truth is on my side,” Patricia told the media on May 10. “I lived with the mental torture of the situation where facts can be completely ignored, or misrepresented with disregard for the consequence and pain that it would create for another person. I find it unfair and upsetting that someone would bring this claim up over two decades later with the sole purpose of hurting my family, my friends and this organization with the intention of trying to damage my character and credibility. I was innocent then and I am innocent now. Let me be clear, my priorities remain the same: to move forward and strive to be the best coach, teacher, and man that I can possibly be.”
Davis maintained that the news on Patricia has caused “no distraction” for he and his fellow teammates.
“You gotta walk that fine line in this league and you gotta just stay focused,” he said. “You gotta stay focused. They do a lot of things to pull you off, but you gotta stay on track.”
New Lions tight end Luke Willson echoed those sentiments when he spoke to the media earlier in the week.
“We are professional athletes,” Willson said. “You guys heard what coach Patricia said in his statement, and we heard what coach Patricia said in the team room and we are ready to move on and get better at football. You guys all know it’s a cut-throat environment around here. So it’s one of those things where we gotta focus on football and as a player, that’s what it is. It’s football around here and getting better and winning games.”