Matt Patricia's first season as Detroit Lions coach has not gone the way anyone planned, but Patricia expressed optimism Wednesday he'll get a chance to correct what went wrong in 2019.

Asked if he has been told he'll definitely be back next season, Patricia said, "I’m pretty confident in everything."

"For me right now is just keep moving forward and getting ready for the game this weekend," he said. "Like I said, I meet with Mrs. Ford every week. They’ve been great. Her and her family have been great."

Patricia and Lions owner Martha Firestone Ford met Wednesday, but Patricia declined to reveal the nature of their conversations.

Asked specifically what he has been told about next season, Patricia said he wanted to keep those discussions "in house."

"I think again, we’re just pushing forward for Green Bay right now," he said. "I want to keep the topic of Green Bay, that’d be great."

The Lions are 5-10 heading into Sunday's season finale against the Green Bay Packers and have been one of the most disappointing teams in the NFL this year.

After back-to-back 9-7 seasons, general manager Bob Quinn fired Jim Caldwell as head coach last January and hired Patricia, his friend and former co-worker with the New England Patriots, as his replacement.

Patricia's tenure got off to a rocky start when it was revealed in May he was accused of sexual assault as an undergrad. He said he was falsely accused of the charge, and the organization stood by him as head coach.

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In season, the Lions struggled out of the gate as players were slow adapting to Patricia's ways.

They lost their opener in blowout fashion to a New York Jets team that started a rookie quarterback on Monday Night Football, 48-17, then they no-showed for three quarters of their Week 2 game against the San Francisco 49ers, before making the final score respectable, 30-27.

The Lions have lost six games by double digits this year and seven of their last nine overall. They've improved greatly on defense in the second half of the season, but have struggled mightily on offensive since the October trade of Golden Tate raised a white flag to the locker room.

Lions defensive lineman Ricky Jean Francois wondered aloud last week if players ever fully bought into Patricia this year — "That’s the million-dollar question and we need an answer,” he said — while several of Jean Francois's teammates insisted they do support their head coach.

"I’ve got a lot of belief in our head coach," safety Tavon Wilson said. "I think it starts with us as players doing our part and doing things, and he’s going to work his ass off to make sure that he’s doing everything he can to do things better. I got all the belief in the world in Coach Patricia. We’ve just got to be better collective as a group. Offense, defense, special teams. Player to coach, coach to player. When you lose, everybody’s to blame."

Just six NFL coaches have been fired after one season in the last 10 years. Of the seven teams with first-year head coaches this season, just two — the Oakland Raiders (Jon Gruden) and Arizona Cardinals (Steve Wilks) — have worse records than the Lions, and the organization is likely looking at a major overhaul this offseason.

The Lions have 20 players on their active roster or injured reserve who will be free agents after the season, a handful of other prominent veterans (T.J. Lang, Glover Quin, Marvin Jones) who are potential trade candidates or cap casualties, and they've seen their quarterback and offensive coordinator come under increasing fire from their fan base.

Asked about potential offseason moves Wednesday, Patricia said that was a discussion for another day.

"I think for us, we’ll evaluate all the stuff after the season, after the season," he said. "I think that message has been consistent all year long and I think the message for us right now is Green Bay. We’ve had a lot to work to get ready for this week and a lot of improvement. Obviously, we need to do better than what we did last week. I would say those immediate changes are the ones that we’ve got to get done this week. That’s the biggest thing that we’ve got to focus on."

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Contact Dave Birkett: dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett. Download our Lions Xtra app for free on Apple and Android!