3 major statements from Philadelphia Eagles cornerback Darius Slay

A great player leaves a bad situation.

Even the most casual football fan will probably tell you that they can give you ten reasons why a player of Slay’s caliber would want out of Detroit, but recently, thanks to a story by Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press, we all got first-hand info on another as Birkett let us all in on a story about a conversation in a team meeting that the All-Pro cover guy didn’t take kindly to.

"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 (expletive), so I’m like, ‘Whoa.’ I’m like, ‘Hold up. Where I’m from, that don’t fly… I wouldn’t say that to him… That’s just not me as a man. That’s disrespectful to me and so from there on it was done with."

Slay credits former teammate and former Lions safety Glover Quin with helping him get through the incident. Here’s more.

"I was real teary-eyed because I got real, real mad and (Quin) was like, ‘Slay, man, he’s just trying to set the tone for the team… He don’t like social media so he trying to post it, make it calm social media down,’ cause a lot of us like social media. I said, man, I wasn’t trying to hear that because of the fact that I’m a grown man. He’s a grown man. Like I said, I wasn’t saying nothing like that to him to disrespect him like that. I wasn’t trying to disrespect that man in no way because I respect him as a man, but I felt there was no mutual respect as a man but he respect me as a player."

In his story, Birkett also quotes Matt Patricia who offered a response via a statement that a team spokesperson emailed to the Detroit Free Press on behalf of the Lions’ head coach.

"Over the last two seasons, Darius and I have had multiple conversations in private that I believed were constructive and satisfactory. My discussions with athletes are confidential, and I won’t comment on anything discussed with our players in a team meeting. I appreciate his hard work and wish he and his family all the success in Philadelphia."

Sheesh! Well, look at it this way. Patricia is from that Bill Belichick school where coaches pride themselves on treating all players equally. Just look at how the New England Patriots have handled Tom Brady.

While no one should be surprised that Patricia would try and set a tone by calling out one of the team’s best players, there’s something that we can all agree on. Maybe he should dial it back a tad. There isn’t a football player or a fan on Planet Earth that will tell you that Matt Patricia is anything close to being Bill Belichick.