The Lions have a new offensive coordinator this year and Darrel Bevell is still figuring out how he’ll put the unit’s pieces together in 2019.
He knows that quarterback Matthew Stafford and running back Kerryon Johnson will be in leading roles, but is otherwise asking position coaches to put together tape on players that shows “how we can push them to get better and the best way to use these guys in our offense.” When that’s done, Bevell said he’ll have a better idea of how everything will come together.
“I hope it’s one that scores points,” Bevell said, via the Detroit News. “That’s the first thing we need to do. But right now, it’s still something we’re trying to build. It’s easy to say what we want to do in the run game, what we want to do in the pass game, but we need to build around our players. We’re going to do what Kerryon does well, we’re going to do what our wide receivers do well, what Matthew does well. At this point, to make big, bold statements, it’s a little bit early because we need to discover a little bit more about our personnel.”
Stafford is coming off a down year and Bevell said that he’s talked with the quarterback about “stretching him a little bit” in hopes of better results this season. Whatever other pieces fall into place, the chances of a serious improvement on offense won’t look so good if Stafford’s not in better form this time around.