Detroit Lions OC Darrell Bevell talks Matthew Stafford, offensive identity and Lions skill players

Rather than provide you with snippets and potentially out-of-context quotes from Monday’s season ticket fan summit, we decided it’s best for you to just see it all. Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell was one of the most anticipated speaker at the event, so here’s a full transcript on the most interesting questions he faced from Tori Petry and Anthony Bellino.

On working with Matthew Stafford:

“I’ve already had a good conversation with Matthew. Got to talk to him on the phone. I’ve been in this division with the Vikings and with the Packers, so I feel like I know him pretty well. But I’m really excited just to start to build this thing. We don’t even know where we’re going to go, who we are going to be yet, because we’re going to build this around our players.

In my conversation with him, we want to make sure we’re doing the things that he’s been successful at, but I also talked with him about stretching him a little bit, maybe putting him in positions that he hasn’t been in before, and to be able to push our offense to new heights.”

On the Lions’ offensive identity:

“Well, hopefully it’s one that scores points. That’s the first thing we need to do. But right now, it’s still something that 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.

So we’re going to do what Kerryon (Johnson) does well. We’re going to do what our wide receivers do well, what Matthew does well. We’ve got to make sure we take care of the quarterback by protecting him. So 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.”

On being more balanced:

“It’s no secret where I’ve been we’ve been able to run the football, and we’ve been able to run it at a high level. We’ve had great running backs with Adrian Petersons, Chester Taylors, Ahmad Greens, Marshawn Lynch. So many great running backs, and that’s something that I believe in wholeheartedly, but that doesn’t mean that you need to be balanced with run and pass.

We’re going to run the football and we’re going to run it really well, but we want to make sure that we’re doing all different kinds of things and accentuating what our players do well.”

On the Lions’ current offensive roster

“It’s really exciting right now. I’ve got the whole offensive staff in the meeting room. We’re going through terminology and then we’re talking about the players, we’re watching them and trying to find out what their strengths are, what their weaknesses are, so we can maximize their strengths.

But just as you said, when you look at the running back, with Kerryon, that’s a great start. You’ve got (Kenny) Golladay and (Marvin) Jones—two big, long receivers outside. A little bit different skill sets, they both have different skill sets, sot to be able to put them in different situations to be successful and it always starts with the quarterback for me. You have to have a quarterback to be able to win in this league and we have a good one to be able to start there.

There are couple of interesting notes from Bevell’s transcript. Most notably, I thought it was interesting how Bevell spoke about pushing Matthew Stafford to positions he’s never been in. A lot of people would think a veteran 31-year-old quarterback pretty much knows it all at this point, but it’s clear Bevell thinks there’s room for growth for Stafford.

Additionally, Bevell tried to make it very clear that his offensive identity will depend on his personnel, and that hasn’t yet been determined.

That being said, “We’re going to run the football and we’re going to run it really well” is about as strong of a statement as we got from Bevell the entire night, and it certainly matches the perception of him and what he’ll bring to Detroit in 2019.