Matthew Stafford has put up some prolific numbers since being taken #1 overall by the Lions in the 2009 draft. In 2014, he did put up number that were as lofty as some of the peaks he achieved in previous years, but he did lead the Lions to a 11-5 record, which was the best the team has had since Stafford arrived. This article will break down the TDs that Stafford scored for the Lions in 2014.
Over my next few articles, I’m going to be covering the biggest positives (touchdowns) and negatives (turnovers) from the NFC North QBs in 2014. Matthew Stafford leads off with his 22 regular season passing and 2 rushing TDs in 2014, along with a passing TD in the playoffs. First, I’m going to cover some charting data I came up with while watching his passing. Then, on page 2 and beyond, there are my thoughts of the individual plays themselves. Here are the articles in the series that I have completed so far:
Here’s data on the yardage from Stafford’s TDs:
Yardage Breakdown
| Yards | 519 | Average | 22.6 |
| Yards after catch | 170 | Average | 7.4 |
| Yards in Air | 349 | Average | 15 |
| Yards in Air+ | 405 | Average | 18 |
The difference between “Yards in Air” and “Yards in Air+” is that I give credit for yards in the endzone in “Yards in Air+.” So, if the line of scrimmage is the 2 and he throws a TD pass that’s caught 7 yards into the endzone, the YIA for that play is 2 while the YIA+ is 9.
Stafford likes to go deep. That is clear from this analysis. He averaged a whopping 22.6 yards/att on passing TDs, and 2/3rds of the yards he accumulated were through the air, which shows that he is not reliant on big plays from his receivers after the catch. This doesn’t mean he can’t throw shorter routes (as you’ll see later in the route breakdown) but it does mean that the Lions offense really does a pretty good job of generating explosive scoring plays.
This brings me to the next tables, which break his TD passes down by distance and location:
Distance Breakdown
| Fewer than 6 Yards | 5 |
| Between 6 and 15 yards | 8 |
| More than 15 yards | 10 |
Location Breakdown
| Deep Left | Deep Middle | Deep Right |
| 3 | 5 | 2 |
| Intermediate Left | Intermediate Middle | Intermediate Right |
| 2 | 4 | 2 |
| Short Left | Short Middle | Short Right |
| 1 | 1 | 3 |
Once again, you can see the strong presence of the deep passing game. Note that I do evaluate the two categories differently. The first one is based on box score yardage, and the second is based on where the route was actually run. So, for example, Golden Tate scored a 73 yard TD against the Saints on an 8 yard out route. That got put in the 16+ category on the distance breakdown and the Intermediate Right category on the location breakdown. With that kind of analysis, you might expect him to throw fewer “deep” passes if his receivers were scoring long plays because they were gaining a ton of yards after the catch, but as you can see, that’s clearly not the case as the numbers between the categories match up. This backs up the conclusion that Stafford likes to throw deep TDs.
Now let’s take a look at the route types he threw to:
Route Breakdown
| Vertical | 8 |
| Broken Play | 4 |
| Flat/Screen | 3 |
| Fade | 3 |
| Curl | 2 |
| Out | 2 |
| Post | 1 |
| Angle | 1 |
Another example showing Stafford’s propensity to go deep. I initially considered the fade routes to be vertical routes as well but I changed my mind. Another thing that sticks out here is Stafford’s ability to work with his receivers and make a play while essentially the receiver is essentially backyard football’s favorite route, “Get Open,” after Stafford escapes pressure.
Speaking of rollouts, I also tracked plays where Stafford was pressured or didn’t have a standard dropback:
Dropback Breakdown
| Nothing Unusual | 15 |
| Rollout | 1 |
| Pressured | 7 |
Once again, his work under pressue sticks out, as he threw 7 TD passes while pressured.
Speaking of pressure, how did Stafford do in close moments? Here’s a look at his TD’s in “Crunch Time” (which I define as the game being within 8 points in either direction with less than 5 minutes left in the game) and “Garbage Time” (down 9 points or more with under two minutes left, 16 points or more with under 6 minutes left, or 21 points or in the 4th Quarter) TDs:
Situational Breakdown
| Crunch Time | 4 |
| Garbage Time | 1 |
I’ve seen the Lions called the “Cardiac Cats,” and for good reason. They’ve made a number of great comebacks with Stafford at the helm, and took that to a new level last season, especially against the Saints and Falcons. Stafford does really well in crunch time, and delivered 4 TDs in clutch moments. The Lions had a good record, but they didn’t blow out teams by any means in 2014. This led to few garbage times TDs because he simply didn’t have many opportunities to throw them.
With this talk of crunch time and garbage time TDs, let’s look at his TD breakdown by Quarter:
Quarter Breakdown
| 1st Quarter | 7 |
| 2nd Quarter | 6 |
| 3rd Quarter | 4 |
| 4th Quarter | 6 |
Down Breakdown
| 1st Down | 5 |
| 2nd Down | 8 |
| 3rd Down | 10 |
| 4th Down | 0 |
Stafford actually spread his TDs out very evenly by quarter. The Lions had a lot of success in the second half last season, but they weren’t too shabby in the first half either. As far as downs go, Stafford threw many of his TDs on third down. Particularly, he seemed good at coming through on third-and-long (8 of those 10 TD passes were 3rd-and-7+). The Lions seem to try to employ a more aggressive strategy on 3rd-and-long than other teams who just run screens/draws to try to protect against a turnover or sack.
Receiver Breakdown
| Calvin Johnson | 8 |
| Golden Tate | 5 |
| Theo Riddick | 4 |
| Joique Bell | 1 |
| Corey Fuller | 1 |
| Eric Ebron | 1 |
| Joseph Fauria | 1 |
| Jed Collins | 1 |
| Jeremy Ross | 1 |
Once glance at this list and it quickly becomes clear who Stafford’s favorite targets were. Johnson and Tate are no brainers, but Riddick could be considered a bit of a surprise. However, if you followed the Lions last year you’d know that Riddick really emerged as a valid target, which was helpful because of how often Reggie Bush was sidelined. Now he’ll have to compete with rookie Ameer Abdullah, who I really like, and Joique Bell for playing time.
The other thing that pops out to me is the distinct lack of TEs on the list, with only two TE TDs present. The Lions had severe injury problems at the TE position in 2014, and that even caused them to sign Kellen Davis and give him playing time, which is pretty bad. Hopefully for the Lions, 2014 first round pick Eric Ebron could emerge into the dynamic TE receiving threat he is supposed to be.
