Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer was in Allen Park on Sunday to see the Detroit Lions in training camp and he had a conversation with coach Patricia about transitioning from the New England Patriots way of doing things to finding his own way.

“The system’s been in place for so long , there are things you don’t even notice, because those things operate in such a smooth manner,” Patricia said to Breer on Sunday morning. “It’s, ‘Wait, why are we doing that? Where are the goalposts?’ And then you go order the goalposts.”

The Lions opened camp with their standard movable goalposts that are narrower than the standard to help kickers improve accuracy. Two days in, they transitioned to stationary goal posts that appear even slightly thinner.

Breer would go on to point out that there are some similarities to that carried over from the Patriots with Patricia.

“Earmarks are there. The coaches are demanding. The action is physical, swift and intense. I saw the nutcracker version of the Oklahoma drill (albeit not at full speed) on an NFL field for the first time. Patricia is intimately involved in drills, like a Bill Belichick or Nick Saban would be. He’s not playing CEO.”

This has been a pattern throughout camp with Patricia constantly moving from position group to position group and meeting with players one-on-one, shouting praise or pulling a player aside to make corrections. He is very boisterous in his compliments, and while you will occasionally see a voluminous correction, you can tell he’s not the type of coach to embarrass a player into fixing mistakes.

Patricia told Breer he sought advice from former Patriots coaches who left for head coaching jobs, wanting to learn from their successes and mistakes. The main takeaway was:

“It was, Be yourself, make sure the players see who you are, make sure they see the passion, the love for the game, make sure they understand the message,” Patricia told Breer. “I’m always going to be me. I think the fundamental philosophies we learned in New England, from how we look at the game, what we believe in the game, are absolutely the right way to do it. I just have to be my own individual.”

Watch Patricia for any length of time and you can see the passion is evident. His practices operate as fast as he talks and there is a purpose to everything. The pace of practice is unique, some of the fundamental drills are ones I’ve never seen before, and it’s clear he is making his own path.