Lions' Matthew Stafford Trying To Make Jump Between 'Good' And 'Great'
By Ashley Scoby
@AshleyScoby
Football is a game of inches, but for quarterbacks, it's also a game of seconds.
To be able to scan the width of the field, evaluate who's blitzing and who's not, figure out where the extra safety coverage is and make a decision - all in less time than it takes for most people to walk across a room - is full of potential for disaster.
According to Lions offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi, Matthew Stafford has made leaps in terms of how quickly he can make those decisions once the ball is snapped. And that speed can mean the difference between an incompletion and a 20-yard gain.
"The difference between good and great is just a split second at that position and I think he's just seeing things a little faster and also knows when he can throw into some looks that last year maybe were a little cloudy that are much more clear to him," Lombardi said. "I think he's had a real strong camp."
Stafford has always hovered on that line between 'good' and 'great' since being drafted by the Lions from Georgia in 2009. He's thrown for more than 4,000 yards in a season four years in a row. But he's an inexplicable 0-18 against winning teams on the road. He's been skittish before. But he also had a career-low 12 interceptions last season.
With Stafford, there's very much an ebb and flow to what's considered "successful" for him.
But this year could be the one where all the pieces fall into place: He has a stacked stable of running backs to balance out his passing game, with Joique Bell, Theo Riddick and rookie Ameer Abdullah. He has a healthy Calvin Johnson, who is considered by many to be the best receiver in the game. He has Golden Tate, who would be the go-to receiver on almost any other team in the NFL. He has interior line depth.
So for Stafford, maybe the rest of it starts to fall on him. In his second year playing in Lombardi's system, his comfort level will be higher. Hesitation instead turns to muscle memory, which then starts to shave nanoseconds off decision-making time.
"When you know what you're doing, you go out there and just play rather than think," said Lions defensive end Darryl Tapp, who played against Stafford when he was with the Redskins and Eagles, and has been chasing quarterbacks in the league since 2006.
"He (Stafford) is a problem. I remember from playing with other teams, when we came here to play Detroit, you definitely had to be aware of Matt in the pocket. … He can make every throw on the field so you've really got to continue to give him different looks. But he dissects things so quickly and then stores them for later."
That speed can be the difference between a good season for the Lions, like they had last year, and a great one, like if they could win the franchise's first playoff game since 1991.
How Stafford spent his offseason, and how he can gain that split second that Lombardi mentioned, could play a huge role in that.
"I think just spending extra time trying to look at some of the mistakes I had last year and kind of categorizing them into what kind of mistakes they were, whether it be physical or mental or decision or whatever it was," Stafford said. "Just trying to polish up on those as much as I can. It's really a total game assessment at the end of every year."