Bob Quinn was selling Detroit Lions on Matt Patricia 2 years before hiring him

New Detroit Lions coach Matt Patricia, general manager Bob Quinn and team president Rod Wood spent 45 minutes speaking to season-ticket holders at the team's annual member summit Monday at Ford Field.

While the event is heavily sanitized — all questions are screened ahead of time — it still produced a few interesting tidbits:

Long time coming

How long did Quinn have his eyes on Patricia as the next Lions coach? According to Wood, almost since the day he walked in the door.

Wood said Quinn talked up Patricia, his former colleague with the New England Patriots, for two years before the Lions finally hired him to replace Jim Caldwell in January.

"I had heard about Matt from Bob for two years before we had the chance to meet and as I think I told him recently, I think he undersold him, and he was selling him," Wood said. "So I think the relationship is strong, the language they speak, the trust. The ability I think to build the team through kind of one long-term vision of what we’re going to be about and this is probably the first time I’ve sat between them since they’ve been in town. They’re together all the time."

The Lions hired Quinn as general manager in January 2016, but did not make a coaching change until after last season.

Quinn, after he was hired in 2016, spent a week pondering Caldwell's future — after missing out on the initial window to interview Patricia with the Patriots on a first-round playoff bye.

In 2017, the Lions went 9-7 and earned a wildcard bid. By the time they lost their playoff game to the Seattle Seahawks, the window to interview Patricia had closed.

Patricia, who worked 12 of his 14 seasons in New England alongside Quinn, said he leaned on Quinn's evaluation of some players from last year's Lions team as they approached free agency this year because of the condensed schedule he had after taking over as coach following the Patriots' Super Bowl run.

Quinn called his relationship with Patricia "the strongest one in the league" among head coach and general manager.

"And I think the players that we’ve brought in so far in free agency, and the guys that we’ll continue to bring in through the draft and every other avenue of the roster-building phase of the year, Matt and I are going to be in lockstep about the kind of players, the kind of people that we want," Quinn said. "It’s been a really smooth transition, but I think there’s a lot of work still ahead."

Ziggy counts

Patricia took exception to a suggestion that the Lions did not make any splash moves in free agency this year.

"I’m not so sure about that," he said. "The Ziggy signing."

The Lions placed the franchise tag on defensive end Ziggy Ansah at the cost of $17.143 million, keeping him off the free-agent market. Ansah had 12 sacks last season, though nine came in a trio of three-sack games. Quinn said he's "really excited to get Ziggy into this new scheme."

"That’s something when we were going through the process, Matt got on board and Ziggy was the No. 1 conversation," Quinn said. "What are we going to do with Ziggy? I had my thoughts. It didn’t take long for me to show Matt why we should do what we did. To have an outside edge rusher that can be as dominant as Ziggy was something that was really appealing to Matt because Matt has had a lot of great players in New England and I think Ziggy would rank right up there with some of the best players that Matt has ever coached."

Discipline matters

As for the Lions' free-agent approach in general — the team overhauled the linebacker position, added size at cornerback and nose tackle, and signed several stopgap veterans to one-year deals — Quinn acknowledged that the Lions "went after a few guys" that the missed on, but said the disciplined path was best for the team.

“Sometimes it happens great the way you have it planned, but there’s a budget for everything and you can’t really overspend for players once you kind of set a ceiling on what their value is," Quinn said. "That’s when mistakes are made in free agency, when you kind of go, I call it hot and heavy, over one player. That might disallow you later on to get some of the role players you’re going to need over the long haul. So it was a scenario where it was a little bit different than the last two years, but I’d say our team is going to be just as effective if not more."

Pick 6

As for the draft, which is just over two weeks away, Quinn said the Lions have hosted eight players on pre-draft visits so far — the team is allowed 30 — and is in the final stages of putting together its draft board.

Already, the Lions have designated part of their scouting department to work on the 2019 draft, and by filling all of their needs in free agency, Quinn said he can take the best-player-available approach to the draft.

"I don’t think we have to reach for anybody cause we’re dying to have one position or another," Quinn said. "Do we have wants and do we have needs? Absolutely. I don’t think it’s a desperation situation to we’re going to have to move up in the draft to get a certain guy or a certain player."

As unpredictable as the draft is, Quinn said he already has a pretty good idea of the five or six players the Lions will be choosing from with the 21st pick of the first round.

"This year we’re in a very similar situation to last year," Quinn said. "Last year we were drafting at 21, this year we’re at 20. Right around the same point in the draft board, we kind of have our scenarios of who may or may not be there. So I can probably narrow it down to five or six guys right now. Now, all that can change tomorrow, but as we're sitting here now, I could probably rattle off a few, which I won’t."

Blount force

There was plenty of talk Monday about the Lions' new-look running game. The team changed offensive line coaches this offseason, adding Jeff Davidson and firing Ron Prince, and signed LeGarrette Blount to add a power presence to the backfield.

After ranking last in the NFL in rushing last season, Quinn said he's confident the Lions, who also return backs Ameer Abdullah, Theo Riddick, Zach Zenner, Tion Green and Dwayne Washington, will be significantly better running the football.

As for Blount, Quinn said he had a "very interesting" free-agent visit to Detroit.

"I’ll give you guys a little behind the scenes, he came in and he really wanted to be here, I’ll say that," Quinn said. "He was really, really excited about the direction of this team, the direction of the ownership, management, with Coach Patricia in the fold. We spent a long day negotiating and LG wouldn’t leave until he signed the contract. So it was a great day. Real excited about what he’s going to bring. Just seeing him around the building today, the leadership he brings, he knows how to win. That’s the bottom line."

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