Matthew Stafford’s Training Camp Was Impressive and Reassuring

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Matthew Stafford‘s Training Camp Shows That He Is Ready For The Upcoming Season.


There are a lot of questions for the Detroit Lions in this year’s training camp. How are the rookies doing? How is the offensive line faring without Taylor Decker? Are the linebackers as improved as they have been advertised? One thing we know for sure after this Detroit Lions training camp is that Stafford is still really good. Matthew Stafford’s training camp showed him to be in mid-season form. He looked consistently sharp and didn’t appear to have any of the rust that you might expect from the long offseason.

Despite all of the talks of his contract extension, Stafford seems focused and ready for football to begin.

Deep Passes

Stafford has historically been inconsistent on his deep throws. He sometimes has beautiful passes that lead the receiver perfectly and drop between covering defenders. We have also seen him errant and relying too much on his arm strength, lacking the proper touch that you like to see on those passes. Matthew Stafford’s training camp showed a lot more of the former than the latter. Outside of his pass that Darius Slay intercepted in the early parts of the mock game at Ford Field, his deep throws looked fantastic. He consistently led receivers well, hitting them in-stride, without overthrowing his targets. It is dangerous to make assumptions during training camp, but Stafford appears to be looking good from the limited looks we have seen.

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Matthew Stafford’s Training Camp Leadership

The leadership and fire that we saw from the Detroit Lions’ quarterback last year continued to show in Matthew Stafford’s training camp this year. When receivers ran a poor route or didn’t get to where he needed them to be, he had them re-run it and explained exactly what he needed out of his receiver. He stayed late after practice to throw with some of his receivers and get extra work in. This is the type of thing you want to see out of a starting quarterback, the leader of the team.

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Weight

In regards to Staffords weight, he did appear to be playing lighter than he has in previous years. This hasn’t appeared to have any effect on the strength of his arm. If there is one takeaway from Matthew Stafford’s training camp, it is that he still has all of the tools that made him fun to watch last year. He doesn’t appear to be shaking off any rust. He still has the fire that we saw in-season last year. Matthew Stafford should be firing on all cylinders when the season starts. Lions’ fans have a lot to look forward to.

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Thanks for checking out the article everyone. Go Lions! You can follow me on Twitter @Lanny1925 and be sure to join the community on the Detroit Lions subreddit.

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About the Author

Sean Lanigan
I love fantasy football, fantasy baseball, music, books, video games, and all things nerd. I'm a big football fan and a bigger Detroit Lions fan. I was born in Michigan but have spent the vast majority of my life living in Viking and Packer country. If you are a Lions fan in Minnesota, hit me up, and let's watch some football.