Caldwell Says Stafford Improving, Team Working To Keep Him Clean
By Ashley Dunkak
@AshleyDunkak
CBS DETROIT - As the Detroit Lions offense has struggled, the spotlight on quarterback Matthew Stafford has intensified. Lions head coach Jim Caldwell said that, while it might be difficult for people outside the team to notice, Stafford has steadily improved this season.
"It's tough [for others] to see what he does in practice, and it's tough to see how he's able to get down to the real small intricacies and details in meetings and things of that nature and then how he's able to apply it," Caldwell told Karsch and Anderson of 97.1 The Ticket. "He gets a lot of scrutiny and a lot of criticism, but I can tell you he's growing, he's developing, he's getting better, and I think we're going to see that a bit more often here in the future."
Stafford has taken 31 sacks this season, third-most in the NFL. Caldwell listed a number of ways the team can try to limit sacks and said the Lions are constantly working to do so.
"To get hit once is one too many," Caldwell said. "We've just got to be able to keep him clean. How do you do that? You become more effective in terms of your protections, and that's backs, that's tight ends, that's offensive line. You also just change up the rhythm of the passing game. It's getting the ball out quickly with more rhythm passes, getting him out of the pocket a little bit, it's all of those kinds of things, so we plan to employ some things to make certain that does indeed happen as much as we possibly can."
As the Lions offense struggles to find a rhythm, the team's opponent this week, the New England Patriots, has one of the hottest offenses in the league thanks largely to the prowess of three-time Super Bowl champion quarterback Tom Brady. Caldwell said that keeping Brady in check will be key to Sunday's matchup.
"He's difficult to slow down, to be honest with you," Caldwell said. "You have to anticipate that he's going to put some points on the board. You've just got to make certain it's not enough to kill you. But he is one of those guys that, like Peyton [Manning] and [Philip] Rivers and some of those guys that have historically been high-point producers within their systems, he's tough to handle, but you've got to be able to kind of keep him under control for the most part and don't let him get red-hot.
"If he gets red-hot, that's when you see games when he just goes to another level," Caldwell continued, "and that's going to be our task, is to make certain our defense doesn't let that happen."
Wide receiver Golden Tate had been targeted 52 times over four games before Stafford threw to him just twice against Arizona last week. Stafford, Tate and Caldwell have all talked in recent days about progressions as the reason Tate was thrown to so infrequently against the Cardinals, but Caldwell cautioned Thursday that the targets of Tate might never be as high as they were in the first half of the season.
"In particular when Calvin was out he got quite a few targets, quite a few opportunities, and Calvin's back now, and it's spread out a little bit," Caldwell said. "[Tight end Eric] Ebron's back in there, he got a few, but I do think, obviously, that he's a guy that can certainly move the ball for us ... I'm not certain you're going to see as many targets as you've seen when Calvin wasn't there and when Ebron wasn't playing during that stretch, but I think it certainly benefits us when he does get the ball in his hands."
The Lions enter Sunday's showdown against the Patriots coming off a loss to Arizona, while New England has won its last six games and scored 42 points or more four times in that span.
