Forgot about Darius Slay? Matt Patricia needs his old foe to save his job and the Eagles season

It’s not what you think. Never was, actually.

They have been in the same building for more than six months now. They have ridden the same buses, eaten the same meals, sat through the same meetings. They have swapped stories and talked smack and broken down film.

On Monday, Darius Slay will play his first snap of football for Matt Patricia since Slay said he’d lost all respect for the man. But it barely qualifies as a thing.

“We already solved that issue, before he was making the play calls,” Slay said Thursday afternoon. “We were already cool.”

That’s a good thing. Because Slay is the one reason to think that Patricia might live to coach another NFL game.

Such talk probably won’t sit well with Eagles fans. For most of the last month, watching Patricia’s defense has felt like sitting at a hibachi table. Study the All-22 game tape of last week’s loss to the Giants and you can actually see Tyrod Taylor flipping chunks of flank steak into his receivers’ mouths.

» READ MORE: Matt Patricia: Eagles defense must get back to playing ‘fast and aggressive’ in wild-card round vs. Buccaneers

Since Patricia took the reins in Week 15, the Eagles have allowed the fifth-highest total of points in the NFL with the fifth-worst sack rate and sixth-worst run defense. The pass defense has been only slightly better, ranking 20th in yards allowed against a gauntlet of quarterbacks that includes Drew Lock, Tommy DeVito, Kyler Murray, and Taylor.

Whether or not the Eagles need a fresh start, their fan base certainly does.

But maybe Slay is that fresh start.

Fact is, four of the Eagles’ six losses this season have come with their All-Pro cornerback on the sideline. He underwent arthroscopic knee surgery the same week Patricia took over play-calling duties from Sean Desai. Slay also missed the Eagles’ 20-14 loss to the Jets in Week 6.

Since joining the Eagles in 2020 in a trade with the Detroit Lions — which Patricia was coaching — Slay has missed seven games. The Eagles have won one of them.

In a league where talent prevails, no position outside of quarterback has the singular impact of an elite cover man. Regardless of whether Slay still fits that description, he is clearly a massive upgrade over the next man up. He may not single-handedly solve the Eagles’ coverage woes, but he doesn’t need to.

The Eagles’ losses to the Seahawks and Cardinals were both by one score and in the closing seconds. Put Slay on the field, and maybe they win those possessions. Maybe they end up with the No. 1 seed. Maybe things feel a whole lot different than they do right now.

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“We know how great he is and everything that he brings,” Patricia said earlier this week when asked about Slay’s potential return for the wild-card game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

“Certainly, we can get into that situation and then we’re obviously excited to get him out there and play,” Patricia said. “And then we’ll just try to get everybody else in a situation depending on whether it’s down and distance or personnel package or something like that, area of the field, where we think those guys that we have now seen, those young guys we have now seen, if we think they can help us in that situation and try to get them on the field when we can.”

Funny how life works, isn’t it?

Patricia is a much better coach than people think. His Patriots units ranked in the top 10 in scoring defense in each of his six seasons as coordinator. You can credit that to Bill Belichick, sure. But if Belichick is so good — and he is — what does it say that he rehired Patricia after his disastrous time as the Lions’ head coach?

Again, though: Talent prevails. Here in Philly, we remember Patricia mostly as the coordinator whom Nick Foles shredded in the Super Bowl. We sometimes forget that the Patriots played that game without their top cornerback.

The mysterious benching of Malcolm Butler may have foreshadowed Patricia’s rocky relationship with Slay in Detroit. Patricia’s tenure with the Lions seemed doomed even before the Lions traded Slay to the Eagles for pennies on the dollar after the 2019 season. After the trade, Slay unloaded on his former head coach, blasting him in public for a couple of moments of disrespect. Patricia lasted 11 more games as Lions head coach, until he was fired after a 4-7 start.

To recap: Patricia’s tenure as Patriots defensive coordinator ended with a Super Bowl implosion and his top cornerback watching from the sideline. His tenure as Lions head coach ended with a regular-season implosion and his top cornerback watching from Philly. After an inglorious stint as Patriots offensive coordinator, Patricia has begun his current gig with a series of implosions, each with his top cornerback injured.

How much can one guy mean? We’re about to find out.

This is a game the Eagles should dominate. Back in Week 3, they held Baker Mayfield and the Bucs to 173 total yards in a 25-11 win. Slay was a big part of an effort that held Mike Evans and Chris Godwin to a combined eight catches and 92 yards.

“I do feel a little fresher now,” Slay said Thursday. “I did kind of miss being out there. I was kind of bored. I’m looking forward to getting back out there.”

Of course, it’s on Slay to prove that he is still the kind of cornerback who can tilt the scales. The Eagles need it. Patricia needs it. The biggest reason to believe in this defense is that we forgot about Slay.