Quote:He has a career completion % under 60% despite feeding targets to one of the greatest catch radius receivers in the history of the game.  Any "success" they've had through the passing game have come through accumulation rather than efficiency, mainly from having a generational freak  talent at WR and a former OC in Scott Linehan who is one of the founding fathers of the spread offense and would throw the ball 70 times a game if he could.

 

The Lions have had other problems, but Stafford's mechanics, and thus accuracy, have been a major issue which is why Detroit brought almost an entire staff of QB coaches to help fix him ... Caldwell, Lombardi and Jim Bob Cooter.    And they all made Stafford's mechanics an A1 priority.  

 

Even with <60% completion in his career (59.5%), he's still done some decent things in Detroit.  His best year saw him have a 41-16 TD-INT ratio and 5000 yards passing.  He also had a 4900 yard season too.  His overall TD-INT ratio is 109-73.

 

Is he perfect?  Obviously not, because the team made a concerted effort to fix his mechanics.

 

But he's been good enough for the team to be willing to make the investment into his development even after five years in the league, rather than the new coaching staff bring in a new guy.

 

History is replete with guys who never made it that far.  More often than not, guys with major mechanical flaws don't put up those kind of numbers and don't get the chance to fix them with a new coaching staff.

 

But I wonder how much of his completion percentage is attributable to his flaws, and how much is attributable to the offense.  If the team has emphasized deeper passes more than the typical WCO, a lower completion percentage is to be expected.  Not being overly familiar with the Lions' offensive approach in the Stafford era, I'm not qualified to say.

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