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Lions offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter directs a drill during training camp.

(Mike Mulholland | MLive.com)

ALLEN PARK -- Jim Bob Cooter has been thinking about this for a long time. About calling plays. About having his own offense.

Detroit Lions coach Jim Caldwell saw the potential in 2009, when Cooter joined his staff in Indianapolis. He was too young to be a coordinator then, but Caldwell made a mental note. This guy's got it. This guy will be calling plays.

Cooter's been building his playbook for years. He would doodle plays on napkins in restaurants. He had scraps of paper all over his apartment, Xs and Os strewn on kitchen tables and bathroom sinks.

"At one point in my life it was something like that," he told MLive recently. "I definitely had some scraps of paper laying around. I've been known to create a mess, that's for sure."

But for Cooter, maybe one offensive principle rises above any X or any O.

"At the end of the day, it's not about what plays I like the best," he said. "It's about what plays the players feel the best about.

"I've learned early in my time that if the quarterback really likes a play, he tends to make it work and the same thing works at different positions. If a receiver really likes a route, that guy tends to get open on that route."

So, sure, Cooter has spent years designing a version of the offense that the Lions are about to unleash in 2016. But it has evolved as well, to suit what his players do best. And that's especially true with the quarterback.

And Cooter believes Matthew Stafford could be at his best in a no-huddle offense.

It has been one of the most dramatic changes this season. Detroit was in the bottom third of the league in offensive pace under former coordinator Joe Lombardi, because he wanted to shuffle in personnel and packages at a dizzying rate.

Now, though, Detroit has been in the no-huddle 62 percent of their plays during the preseason. That's up from just 7 percent in the regular season last year.

"I think if you do it right -- if you do it well in general -- it's a more efficient way to go about your business," Cooter said. "Now does that mean we're always playing extremely fast? Absolutely not. But it also doesn't mean we never do that. We like to have all the options at our disposal. Sometimes we play fast, sometimes we don't. Sometimes we're in the huddle, out of the huddle.

"Whatever we think is best, we're going to do that."

The early Cooter Ball results are optimistic. According to ProFootballFocus, Stafford has completed all six of his passes for 108 yards when targeting Golden Tate and Marvin Jones out of the no-huddle.

He's 6 of 11 passing for 63 yards on the rest of his throws combined.

Stafford already is a big fan of the higher tempo, which makes things a little more uncomfortable for the defense.

"The faster you can push the tempo, when you want to, really, it just makes it more stressful on the defense," Stafford said. "If you feel like you're playing at a normal speed, and they think you're playing really fast, it feels a whole lot better for us."

Cooter's system and style clearly suit Stafford. He completed 70 percent of his passes in the second half of last season, with 19 touchdowns and two interceptions. And he's completing even more of his passes this preseason, at 70.6 percent.

Clearly, there already is a chemistry that was never achieved under Lombardi. Part of that, it seems, is Cooter's willingness to listen to Stafford and what he likes.

The process is far more collaborative now than it ever was previously. Stafford has a lot more control, both in building a game plan as well as calling the shots at the line of scrimmage.

Over time, Cooter has given Stafford more and more control of the offense.

"It's growing and growing and growing," Cooter said. "Early in the spring we had to sort of re-install the thing. We changed some verbiage. We changed the way we did some things and it took a little bit just to kind of make sure we got our bearings right on what we're doing. And since then, he's doing a great job taking ownership.

"He's doing a great job sort of making it his own. I mean, just 10 minutes ago he gave me an observation about a play he might like, or a tweak to a current play. You know, 'Maybe we can do this play, but do it like that,' and that's the kind of thing. I think is really valuable for an offense."

The results have been mixed so far. Stafford's four drives in the preseason haven't produced a touchdown, and just six points overall, though that has little to do with Stafford or the scheme, both of which have been highlights.

One promising drive against Pittsburgh was snuffed out by a Taylor Decker holding penalty in the red zone, then a missed block that led to a sack-fumble on the next play. On another drive against Cincinnati, Decker missed a run block on second-and-goal from inside the 5-yard line, then Tate dropped a pass in the end zone.

The offense will get its longest look of the preseason on Saturday night against the Baltimore Ravens -- starters should play roughly a half, perhaps even a series into the third quarter -- and Detroit will be looking for better execution to finish drives.

"I think we're getting there," Stafford said. "Every day is an opportunity to get better, and we're treating this week as that."