Stafford More Comfortable In Offense, Plans To Work With Teammates More Before Training Camp
By Ashley Dunkak
@AshleyDunkak
ALLEN PARK - Offseason workouts, OTA practices and mandatory minicamp are over, but Detroit Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford expects to be working with some of his wide receivers and tight ends before the team reunites for training camp in August.
Stafford had mentioned earlier in the offseason that he would likely meet up with veteran wide receiver Calvin Johnson, young tight end Eric Ebron and others and spend some time doing drills with them.
"We go away from the game and everybody comes back in great physical shape, there's no question," Stafford said Thursday after the final practice of the team's three-day mandatory minicamp. "But there's no substitute for running routes, for a receiver, and catching the ball from the guy you're going to be catching the ball from during the season, and there's really no substitute for me, throwing to a spot or throwing to somebody that's not on our team. It just isn't as beneficial as being together and doing that, so hopefully we'll get together and do some of that."
Even though the Lions won 11 games last season, among fans and other observers there was some hand-wringing over the offense, which ranked 22nd in the league in points per game. Last season was the first one in the new offense brought in by coordinator Joe Lombardi, and Stafford said he is much more comfortable in that system now, though he did make some improvement in 2014.
In Stafford's first year under Lombardi and head coach Jim Caldwell, he threw 12 interceptions, down from 19 the previous season. Caldwell has made it clear that minimizing turnovers and winning is much more important to him than racking up flashy passing stats.
Still, the Lions want to take the offense up a notch in the coming season.
"You want to be explosive and efficient at the same time," Stafford said. "The way this league is, you throw for a lot of yards and a lot of touchdowns, it's usually a successful season. I'm just going to continue to try getting better, make sure that we're not turning the ball over and making big plays."
For Caldwell, efficiency is definitely the priority over explosiveness.
"We've got a good defensive team, and when you do that, you have to play complimentary football," Caldwell said. "So what we have to do is make certain to take care of the ball better, we have to improve upon our percentage completion, we have to catch the balls that are thrown to us, we've got to keep people off our quarterback's back in terms of sacks and those kinds of things. We do those things, that's where the improvement's going to come.
"A lot of people would like to kind of point and say, well, Matthew's got to do this," Caldwell continued. "Matthew just has to do his job, plain and simple. There's a lot of other guys that have to kind of contribute to that and make this thing go. It's not just offense."
As far as the offense is concerned, however, Stafford has liked what he has seen so far.
"There's no question I think we've taken strides forward this spring," Stafford said. "We've got to continue that. We've got to carry that over through this next five or six weeks and bring it into training camp and be ready to go early on."