Stafford wants to set up passing drills before Lions camp

Peyton Manning gets his wide receivers together for extra off-season workouts at Duke every spring.

When Mark Sanchez was the New York Jets' quarterback, he would bring his teammates to California each summer for a few days of "Jets West" practice.

It won't be quite as formal, but sometime next month Matthew Stafford, Calvin Johnson and a few other Lions will meet somewhere in Atlanta for a few pre-training-camp passing drills that Stafford said are important to the offense's development.

"I think it's big," Stafford said. "I'm obviously in Atlanta quite a bit, so Calvin's right there, throw with him some. But try to find a way to get together with some of the other guys as well."

The Lions finished 22nd in the NFL in scoring offense last year and seemed out of sync at times in their first year under coordinator Joe Lombardi.

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Johnson and Golden Tate both had 1,000-yard receiving seasons, but no other Lion had more than 40 catches or 322 yards.

The Lions are counting on Eric Ebron to play a bigger role on offense this year after his disappointing rookie season, and Stafford said this spring he planned to get together with the second-year tight end sometime during the team's six-week summer break.

"This team is a hard-working team and we go away, we come back in great shape," Stafford said. "But there's no substitute for running routes for a receiver and catching the ball from the guy you're going to be catching the ball from during the season. And there's really no substitute for me throwing to a spot — and throwing to somebody that's not on our team, it just isn't as beneficial as being together and doing that. So hopefully we'll get together and do some of that."

Contact Dave Birkett: dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett. Download our free Lions Xtra app on your Apple and Android devices.