Matt Patricia is so addicted to football that he once took a 94 percent pay cut — yes, 94 percent — for the chance to be a position coach at the Division III level.
The Patriots’ burly and bearded defensive coordinator has more than made it all back by now, of course, and Patricia can cement his growing reputation as one of the NFL’s most promising assistants next week with a Patriots victory over the Falcons in Super Bowl LI in Houston.
But those who know the 42-year-old Patricia from his days as an aeronautical engineering student at upstate New York’s Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute still shake their head at his staggering leap of faith almost 20 years ago.
“I’ve still never heard of anyone doing something like that except Matt,” retired RPI coach Joe King said. “Amazing.”
What Patricia did in 1999 was turn down a cushy, $100,000-a-year offer to maintain nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers with Westinghouse — for a spot coaching the defensive line for tiny Amherst College in western Massachusetts.
The “salary” for that job? Roughly $6,000 a year.
“Knowing Matt, it doesn’t surprise me,” King told The Post this week. “He’s obsessed with football and coaching, and when you have that, nothing really takes its place. Money is one thing, but it comes and goes. You’ve got to do something you’re passionate about, and that’s what Matt did.”
Patricia’s passion eventually paid off handsomely 11 years later, when the Sherrill, NY, native was tabbed to call the defensive plays for New England by Bill Belichick and then given the formal title of defensive coordinator two years after that.
Fans know Patricia as the sometimes-manic grizzly bear with a backwards baseball cap and a pencil behind his ear on the Patriots’ sideline. The look is so distinct that hilarious shirts replacing “Patriots” with his last name and the face on the team’s logo remade with his bearded mug are a hot seller in New England.
But to Patricia’s former college teammates (he was a center at RPI) and coaches, as well as his current players and coaching peers, he is a strategic and analytical whiz befitting his degree in aeronautical engineering from one of the country’s most respected engineering schools.
Patriots linebacker Dont’a Hightower credits Patricia with almost single-handedly turning around the season for the New England defense.
The Patriots were scorched in the first two games — including allowing 457 yards in a 31-24 Week 2 win over the Dolphins — only to make a sudden about-face and finish the year ranked No. 1 in the NFL in scoring defense and eighth in total defense.
“Matty P [Patricia] just does a really great job as far as the way he molds and puts the game plan together,” Hightower said last week. “Earlier in the season we had a couple of new guys so the calls were not as complicated, and now guys know what’s going on and we’re able to move and spin and guys are able to get put in different situations and do different things [by Patricia]. I think that’s what really kind of helped us turn that corner.”
Patricia already is part of Super Bowl lore even before the Patriots go for their fifth Lombardi Trophy under Belichick against the Falcons at NRG Stadium on Feb. 5.
It was Patricia who sensed the Seahawks were going to pass instead of give Marshawn Lynch the ball from the New England 2-yard line in the waning seconds of the Super Bowl two years ago in Arizona.
Patricia called for a rookie free agent, Malcolm Butler, to go in as an extra defensive back, and Butler responded by intercepting Russell Wilson to preserve the Patriots’ 28-24 victory.
Those are the moments that explain why Patricia has never regretted the decision to walk away from the Westinghouse offer 18 years ago while working as an engineer in Syracuse.
“Here’s the problem: Every time fall rolled around, I’d start noticing the smell of fresh-mown grass on the local football fields,” Patricia recently told RPI’s alumni magazine. “I’d start thinking about football again.”
Actually, that wasn’t the only time in his career Patricia gambled on himself with a step back in pay and prestige.
Patricia was an offensive graduate assistant at Syracuse in 2003 and circulating his résumé among NFL teams when the Patriots called, offering a menial gig with entry-level pay collecting and reviewing video.
It didn’t take long for Patricia’s gamble to pay off: He was promoted by Belichick three times over the next six years before finally getting the official tag as defensive coordinator in 2012.
Belichick’s willingness to take a chance on Patricia and be so loyal to him doesn’t surprise King, Patricia’s former college coach. Belichick also played for a Division III school (Wesleyan) and, like Patricia, got his start breaking down film for peanuts — $25 a week for the Baltimore Colts in the 1970s.
“Belichick came from a Division III program himself, and I always thought that was an advantage for Matt because Belichick doesn’t care where you came from,” King said. “He just wants to get the job done, and getting the job done is something Matt has always been good at.”
Even if getting to do it at one point meant taking a 94 percent pay cut.