| Advertisement |
Detroit Lions rookie head coach Matt Patricia received more support from his former team following the revelation of a sexual assault indictment against him from the 1990s. New England Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels cited the "high character" and "integrity" of Patricia, a longtime assistant with the club, the Boston Globe reported.
Advertisement
Patricia, who was hired away as the defensive coordinator of the Patriots, claims he was falsely accused of the charges that led to an indictment on one count of aggravated sexual assault for an alleged incident involving a 21-year-old woman on South Padre Island (Texas) in 1996.
"Matt's always been a good friend of mine. I enjoyed working with him for a long time," McDaniels told the newspaper Friday. "I don't really know anything about that topic or anything like that. I haven't spoken to him in the last day or two, so it would be unfair for me to comment on that."
Patriots head coach Bill Belichick released a statement Thursday, acknowledging the team was unaware of the incident while praising Patricia for the way he handled himself during his tenure with New England.
"For 14 years in our organization, Matt conducted himself with great integrity and is known to be an outstanding coach, person and family man," said Belichick in the statement. "We have always been confident in Matt's character and recommended him highly to become the head coach of the Detroit Lions."
McDaniels reiterated that was he was aware of any of the specifics of the alleged incident but sided with Belichick in his support of Patricia.
" ... I think Bill made a statement yesterday and I would agree with that," said McDaniels. "(Patricia) has always been a guy that we enjoyed working with, certainly been of high character, integrity. It's obviously unfortunate for anybody to go through what's happening, but I'm not really educated on the whole topic right now."
