Matthew Stafford needs the Detroit Lions coaches to let him be himself

Drew Sharp | USA TODAY Sports

Prior to interviewing with the Detroit Lions in January 2014, Jim Caldwell watched every throw Matthew Stafford made in the 2013 season. All 634 of them.

He took notes. He made suggestions. And when Bill Ford Jr., Tom Lewand and Martin Mayhew brought Caldwell into Allen Park to discuss the Lions' head coaching opening, Caldwell wanted Stafford there as well. It was an opportunity for the Lions' hierarchy to watch Caldwell instruct the franchise's prized pupil.

He pointed out situations in which Stafford could've made better decisions. Did he really have to throw into double coverage there? Wasn't there an easier, more efficient pass to be made than blindly trusting his rocket launcher of a right arm?

The Lions were confident they found the right offensive head coach to "fix" Stafford. Somebody who could teach Stafford conformity. Somebody who could instill discipline and a stronger trust in the passing progressions established for him in the offensive game plan. Somebody who could better holster the gunslinger that both excited and exasperated everyone in his first five years with the Lions.

But "fixing" Stafford doesn't mean turning him into the next Joey Harrington, the crown prince of the check-down. Harrington was the equivalent of a quarterbacking white flag, often surrendering too quickly to stringent defensive reads.

There must be a proper balance with Stafford. He can't be reckless. He must make smarter decisions. But he also can't fully retreat from the occasional high-risk, high-reward option. Even if that means working the ball more to Calvin Johnson despite opposing teams bracketing him with a corner cutting off the inside and a safety rolling over the top, similar to what San Diego did in its 33-28 win in the season opener.

"You had better get your problems corrected," Caldwell said Monday, "and move on because the next opponent sees them and you can guarantee you'll see those things over and over again until you make certain that you have them ironed out."

Making Stafford more efficient with his decision-making is vital. But not at the expense of making him more robotic, sapping every last ounce of spontaneity out of him. He's more Joe Namath than Joe Montana. It wasn't until Namath learned to do less that he won the biggest games of his career. But that didn't mean that he completely abandoned his quick-strike, big-play instincts when those opportunities presented themselves.

It still must come down to trusting the quarterback's judgment in identifying the defensive weak spot during his pre-snap read and adjust the designed play from the offensive coordinator accordingly.

Caldwell isn't doing that. It certainly looks as though Stafford is under strict orders to not take any unnecessary chances. If Calvin is double-teamed, there are other available positional mismatches exposed that Stafford must recognize and exploit.

That's fine. But it's also true that you cannot justify targeting one of the premier receivers in the game only four times because the designed progressions told the quarterback to do exactly that. Caldwell and offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi cannot abandon the compatibility Stafford and Johnson developed. A comfort sometimes communicated solely between the two of them at the line of scrimmage because they recognize a defensive hole perhaps nobody else sees.

The aftermath of the Lions' embarrassing loss Sunday reminds me of the film room scene from the old movie, "North Dallas Forty," when the Tom Landry-patterned head coach sternly chided his quarterback and receiver for changing a play at the line of scrimmage that resulted in a touchdown. Why was he upset? Didn't the quick recognition work?

The coach wouldn't tolerate any deviation from the meticulously crafted game plan, calling the score a fluke. No one in this room, the coach barked, was smarter than the computer that spit out the prescribed play for that specific situation.

Caldwell and Lombardi can't become that caricature.

Drew Sharp writes for the Detroit Free Press