NEW ORLEANS -- Starting today, we’re going to try something new for a little while. Almost every day, I’ll take one reader question and expand on it a little bit to try and answer the questions that you have about the Lions, the NFL and really anything else.

To submit a question for this, tweet using the hashtag #LionsMailbag on Twitter, email me at michael.rothstein@espn.com or drop me a note and go follow me on Facebook.

Now, on to today’s question.

@mikerothstein can you please produce Matt Staffords and Golden Tates stats or production before and after being benched last and this year? — Bash (@Bashwr82) December 5, 2016

Well, coach Jim Caldwell acknowledged one (Matthew Stafford) was a benching last year while never actually coming out and saying Golden Tate was benched -- which he clearly was -- against Chicago this year. But there were questions after the Tate benching, after the Lions dropped to 1-3, about whether or not Caldwell's style of benching key players for performance actually worked.

Hence the question from Bash, and it's a good one. The short answer is yes, the two benching decisions might have helped, although we'll never know if Stafford and Tate would have improved no matter what.

But take a look at the stats.

Since being taken out in Week 5 of the 2015 season, Stafford has been impressive. He's played in 23 games and completed 563 of 830 passes -- a 67.8 percentage that would be higher than any season of his career. He's thrown for 6,281 yards, averaging 273.1 yards per game.

The real difference has been in his decision-making. Over that stretch, he's thrown 47 touchdowns and 10 interceptions -- five in the final 11 games last season and five so far this season.

The 64 sacks aren't great, but that number is skewed considering Stafford was sacked 13 times combined between Weeks 7 and 8 of last season, the last week of Joe Lombardi's tenure and the first week of Jim Bob Cooter's. Stafford's been sacked more than twice just once over the past five games.

His passer rating over the past 23 games of 104.0 would be a career-high, and his QBR of 69.6 in that stretch would be close. The post-benching Stafford has been a difference-maker.

Now let's look at Tate, who has admitted multiple times he was concerned too much about numbers early on this season, and it hampered his performance. He got that wake-up call by sitting most of the second half of Week 4's loss to the Bears and has been a consistent receiver ever since.

In the eight games since, Tate has had 75 yards receiving or better in five of those games. He's posted two 100-yard games, including a career-best 165 yards in Week 6 against Los Angeles and then 145 yards Sunday against the Saints.

He hasn't had a drop in his past five games and has at least five receptions in six of his past seven games. Tate has returned to the consistent player he was his first two years with the Lions and is averaging 13.08 yards per catch and has 426 yards after the catch.

He's also caught 73.9 percent of the balls thrown to him and has been targeted on 28 percent of his routes. These are all strong numbers.

Considering Tate himself admitted he adjusted his attitude after the one-catch, one-yard Week 4 performance, I would say it worked out pretty well for Detroit, and it might have been one of Caldwell's most underrated moves of the 2016 season.