ALLEN PARK -- Matthew Stafford's declining accuracy numbers have garnered an awful lot of attention this offseason. But it's worth noting he didn't get much help from his receivers either.

The Detroit Lions had a league-worst 44 drops last year. They botched 7.1 percent of Stafford's throws overall, also last.

The next closest team, New England, was a full half-percentage point back at 6.6 percent.

But maybe Jim Caldwell can help with that.

The first-year Lions coach is amid his first batch of OTAs with his new team, and has begun running a "spray drill" that is designed to get more reps for his receivers.

The concept is elegant in its simplicity. Four or five receivers run their routes against air (in other words, no defense). But instead of one quarterback and one ball, there are multiple quarterbacks throwing balls simultaneously.

Stafford would lock in on his target first and throw the ball. Then backups Dan Orlovsky, Kellen Moore and James Franklin would throw in unison to the secondary receivers who were not targeted by Stafford.

Even tailback Joique Bell, who is sidelined with a knee injury, threw a fifth ball in the five-receiver sets.

The net effect: Receivers ran the same number of routes as they would have in previous air drills under Jim Schwartz, but got far more reps actually catching the ball and establishing a rhythm.

"When you are running a skeleton drill like that, most often you throw one ball, one guy catches it. So you got four other guys running back without ever touching the ball," Caldwell said after practice. "So we try to make certain our guys catch the ball a number of times, and that's how you improve, I think, your catching ability. You make certain that they aren't running a route just to be running a route.

"At some point in time, they're going to have a ball in their hands. So that's the object, in terms of just throwing the ball back as they come back or whatever the case may be. Trying to get as many catches as we can."

The quarterbacks also get in more reps, though Caldwell said that was not the point of the drill.

"You run a drill like that -- routes versus air -- and you run four or five guys, you run with a single quarterback, only one guy's going to get it," Caldwell said. "So really the intent of it is to make sure we get enough catches with each guy."

Reggie Bush had the fourth-most drops in the league last year (and the most among non-receivers) with nine, and Calvin Johnson was just one back with eight.

Johnson wasn't much better Wednesday, when he dropped multiple balls during 7-on-7s and 11-on-11s, though it's also worth noting he's coming off two surgeries (finger, knee) and did not participate in last month's minicamp.