Thoughts on Bevell so far

Nice write-up…

We’ll have 4 weeks of film before heading into the MNF game vs GB. Hopefully we take full advantage of that bye week to tweak some things.

Til then, beat PHI and KC!

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Bevell has been fantastic, I finally feel like we have an OC that is aggressive and unpredictable. I am excited to watch the lions right now because I dont know how we are going to look on offense(in a good way).

The play call to seal the game last week was a thing of beauty, we all know cooter would have ran it Nd we would have punted and the chargers would have scored a TD or at least tied it and we lose in overtime.

Stafford seems to really like this offense and the direction of this franchise. I really love the fst that we are throwing passes more than 3 yards off of scrimmage. Bevell is a good enough OC that we will continue to improve as the season goes on, remember he has only played 2 games with this team!

Yep - barring injuries, we are only going to get better imho…

As Matt buys into it, the rest will follow… that trust thing is huge!

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Stafford USED to be known as The Gunslinger. because he threw all kinds of deep passes , he did alright, but had numerous INT’s…that was a long while ago, since they have extremely reduced the number of deep passes to TRY to reduce the INT’s. This has been going on for 5 seasons bare minimum. You RARELY see Matt take deep shots , why is the HC and OC limit those a great deal.

Stafford has lost his overall confidence , touch, and accuracy, throwing deep BECAUSE we have largely taken that aspect away from him. SO , when he does throw deep ……you can’t always trust it’s going to be a GOOD outcome. Stafford doesn’t do it on a regular basis, so his touch, muscle memory, confidence, and accuracy is awkward.

and it usually burns our asses and makes him look more substandard.

I do not see an uptick in his picks and could care less about worthless stats. I have no idea where the never ending negativity has any basis in reality. I want Stafford to be aggressive and go after it. Let the other team worry and stress about his throwing ability and stop giving teams a pass on dealing with his arm talent. When the Lions get some players that can win their routes so he can throw safer passes great, but until then he has to try and win games with what he has. If he doesn’t throw into tight and risky spots, we are just giving up.

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None of this is true.

That’s simply not the case.

“Last season, (2017) [Matthew Stafford’s 111.6 passer rating on deep throws ranked second in the league behind Smith.”

Stafford was the #2 rated deep passer in 2017 under Cooter. There were several seasons when Stafford was rated in the top 5 of deep passers.

Stafford was interception prone in the past because he gambled a lot in a one dimensional offense… He gambled a lot with Calvin too when he was double or triple covered. He had no choice.

He had no run game and few quality weapons at WR outside of CJ.

The defenses knew he was in a one dimensional offense with only one great target. Stafford threw to him while he was covered because he can jump so high, but it was still a gamble.

The throw to Galladay Vs LAC that ended up an interception in the end zone is a great example. He treated Galladay like CJ but missed the target. Stafford himself explained that he will continue to take shots to Galladay even if he is covered one on one. He’s going to trust his athleticism to come down with the ball on contested throws. This is what happens when you don’t have a lot of quality deep targets. You take shots…err…gambles.

Marvin Jones just doesn’t get much separation. Stafford has no choice but to go to him on certain plays. Don’t believe me? Look at the stats of the windows NFL WR’s produce for their QB’s, and Marvin has one of the smallest windows in the league.

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What’s even more remarkable when Stafford was the #2 deep passer in the league in 2017 he did this despite having No run game and arguably the worst and smallest throwing windows to shoot at.

Ditto that for most of his career.

Jones had a career year in 2017 and most of them were those deep shots to the sideline with a micro window for Stafford to hit.

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i’ve pointed this out in the past as well to those that say incorrectly how conservative stafford and the offense were under caldwell. that it was simply short ball. that wasn’t true. as xmark points out he had no running game or a TE worth a shit to make things easier.

jbc needed to go for sure. i’m not sure i can say anything definitive about bevell yet. as wes says sample size is too small at this point. but i do like hockenson. i think they have much better backs and lets see how things evolve

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The rating shows that Stafford was efficient in the few times that deep balls were thrown, not that Caldwell / Cooter called them with any regularity.

In 2017, the average Intended Air Yards for Stafford was 8 yds, good for 23rd in the league (20th if you use team QB rating). That’s not an aggressive throwing game by any means.

edit to add: Last year, Stafford was 7 average intended air yards, good for 34th in the league. That’s some really wimpy play calling.

Execution is so much better. Stafford’s play action is more crisp and he’s doing more fakes and stuff. He’s taking more control at the line of scrimmage drawing defenders off-side and telling refs to throw the flag. I’m starting to see some Manning/Brady like abilities.

Good job Bevell.

we had Caldwell 2 seasons and Cooter 2 , so isn’t that 4 season’s that Matt didn’t throw deep under them with any regularity ?? as I said?? or am I mistaken?

I like the adjustments Bevell made between games one and two. They realized pressure was an issue and tweaked the gameplan to keep help back and have hotter routes.

I don’t know the exact number without finding the article but I read the average time Stafford held the ball between games one and two was significantly less for the second game

I’ve seen both good and bad. Bevell calling timeout and then following up with an all-deep pass-play when they needed to keep the clock running, this play could have single-handedly snatched the win from us in Zona.

TBD.

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I’m surprised if you see anything but rainbows and unicorns with re to Stafford with those blinders on. I stated some facts about his game and you call it “never ending negativity”.

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It wasn’t all deeps- TJ was slipping out after blocking and would have been wide open in about 1 more second. But Arizona brought 7 and we only had 6 blocking (including TJ) so the free rusher forced Stafford to throw before TJ could slip out.

Not a bad play call necessarily, but the 0 coverage and 7 man blitz worked perfectly against it. And without a hot route that Matt could dump off to, he was forced to chuck it deep. So, like I said in the initial post, I think Bevell was being a little too clever on that one.

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is it better that you have a shit ton of meaningless longball attempts or that the ones you make count for something? the fact is the lion’s connected on the 2nd most deep balls in that year and people keep saying they never threw long. they took their chances when they needed to when they mattered most with high efficiency.

personally i think people get caught up on this stat or that stat. i don’t care if you pass for 7 yrd avg or 15 or if you run the ball 80% per game. uhm… so long as whatever you do you do consistently well and you win games doing it.

i think the fact hockenson’s stats weren’t that big this past week vs week one show that the lions have some decent weapons at each position which wasn’t the case in teh past. it should allow some skill position player to take advantage of a matchup each week and be successful which should help you win games.

in fact i would think it would help you win games handily and not down to last second nail biters week in and week out. for me that is the best gauge of whether this offense and bevel are really any better / different and that’s what i’ll be evaluating for in the coming weeks. otherwise, it’s just the SOL but with actually more talent imho.

One thing I noticed last game.
Every time Stafford saw the Chargers jump off sides, he went for a long ball on the free play.
He saw it and looked deep for a shot.
I just don’t remember that happening so much before. Something Rogers and other top QBs have always done.
Was he throttled down that bad before, or is Bevel the first OC to make it a priority for him to do?

Because the refs usually blow it dead for us but always give Rodgers a free shot

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Yeah, there is that. SMH

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