The biggest adjustment of Matthew Stafford's career will be adapting to a receiver group that doesn't include Calvin Johnson. Stafford has never been an especially accurate thrower in terms of his ball placement, but Johnson has often negated that troubling trait with his ability to catch anything within his general vicinity. This year, with receivers like Golden Tate and Marvin Jones leading the way in Johnson's place, Stafford's accuracy issues could worsen.

To overcome Johnson's loss, Stafford will need to become more precise with his passes. He'll also need to change how he studies film, as he recently revealed.

Via the Lions' official website:

"There were only a handful of teams I would really watch tape on last year," Stafford told WJR before the Taste of the Lions event earlier this month. "It was the Falcons with Julio Jones or the Cowboys with Dez Bryant. I wanted to watch defenses and see how they played against premier, top-flight receivers because we obviously had one.

"Teams were scared of Calvin or those type guys, so they make adjustments that you really don't see in games when they play guys and teams that don't have that guy."

With Johnson now retired, Stafford is expecting to be able to study film and prepare for opponents in a more routine fashion week to week.

Not only does that excerpt provide an interesting glimpse into Stafford's study habits, it also brings up another issue. In the past, teams would roll their coverage to Johnson's side of the field to closely monitor him. Now, with Johnson retired, the opposition won't have to divert defenders to Johnson's side of the field. As Stafford said, he'll be facing "more standard" alignments. That might not be a good thing, even if coverages will be simplified.

I'm a fan of Tate and Jones, but neither of them are true No. 1 wideouts, which might make life harder on Stafford when teams aren't distracted by Megatron. Plus, in the past Stafford could simply chuck up balls and he'd still get credited with a completion and a huge chunk of yards -- all thanks to this guy:

That's not Tate's nor Jones' game (even if Tate has a history of bringing down unlikely completions).

As you can see below, Stafford hasn't fared well without Johnson in the past:


So, it might be best to avoid asking him about Johnson's retirement. Otherwise, this might happen again:

Zing.

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Matthew Stafford will face plenty of adjustments without Megatron. USATSI