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Jim Caldwell not worried about Matthew Stafford over-targeting Calvin Johnson

By Kevin Parvizi

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The Detroit Lions absolutely dominated the New York Giants in Week 1 behind a stellar performance from franchise quarterback Matthew Stafford, who acquitted himself well to a more favorable offensive set-up in the team’s opener. Much to the Lions chagrin, that didn’t carry over into Week 2 against the Carolina Panthers, as Stafford averaged just 6.1 yards per attempt in a very disappointing 24-7 loss. The Panthers have an elite front seven and won their division last year, but they also have a beatable secondary and shouldn’t have won with that kind of a margin.

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    • Stafford has frequently been accused of targeting star wideout Calvin Johnson too much, though he can be forgiven for hitting up the most impressive wide receiver in the league. Johnson has the ability to bail his quarterback out, and this was common, especially on deep throws, early in the Georgia product’s career in Detroit.

    Against the Panthers, Stafford threw 13 of his 48 attempts in Johnson’s direction, and Megatron was only able to turn them into six receptions for 83 yards. It seemed like he was forcing throws to Johnson at times, but Lions head coach Jim Caldwell doesn’t see any issues on that front.

    Caldwell told 97.1 The Ticket’s Karsch and Anderson, via CBS Detroit, I think if it hadn’t been for the interception [Stafford threw Sunday], nobody would even say a word about whether or not they think that he’s forcing the ball to Calvin. And that was on a deep post pattern, and really he had exactly what we were looking for, you can see Calvin starting to run by both guys, and [Matthew] just had to get it out there a little bit more. That was the only issue.”

    Earlier in the piece, there was a quote from Caldwell alluding to how often Aaron Rodgers throws the ball in Jordy Nelson’s direction, which has yielded excellent results for the Packers. Of course, the Packers stated that they love throwing the ball to their best wideout, and it makes plenty of sense for the Lions to do the same. That said, spreading the ball around is also important, but Stafford did do some of that by targeting Joique Bell 11 times and Golden Tate eight times. He can open things up for Johnson more by hitting up Tate, Brandon Pettigrew, Eric Ebron, and others more often, but he did just that against the Panthers. Stafford can look at Johnson too many times, but this happens with most QBs and star wide receivers.

    Like Caldwell, I don’t see any issues here, especially in the context of the Week 2 loss; that wasn’t the Lions biggest problem at all.

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