It was a mess. There had been years of losing. It had been years since their last division title.
At the center of it all was a man — a genius, some said — trying to figure it all out in Year 3 of his first stint as an NFL head coach, with fewer than 10 wins to show in his first two seasons.
But this isn’t a story about a struggling Lions coach. At least it’s not directly about Matt Patricia.
This is a story about Bill Walsh. A coach who had his own problems with the San Francisco 49ers when he took over in 1979.