Thursday open thread: Who deserves more credit for the offensive turnaround: Matthew Stafford or Jim Bob Cooter?

Scoring is up. Passer rating is way up. Touchdowns are up while interceptions are way down.

The Detroit Lions offense looks dynamically different than where they were at at this point last year, and there are probably a ton of reasons why.

However at the forefront of the discussion has been Matthew Stafford’s borderline MVP play and offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter’s brilliant scheming in the face of injuries.

So today’s Question of the Day is:

Who deserves more credit for the offensive turnaround: Jim Bob Cooter or Matthew Stafford?

My answer: First of all, it’s important to note that this isn’t an all-or-nothing proposal. This offense couldn’t be doing what it is doing without both of these people doing their jobs at an extremely high level. But in the end, I have to give the nod to Jim Bob Cooter. We’ve seen Stafford play well individually before, and sometimes that hasn’t mattered. Stafford can only do so much.

Cooter, however, has his hands on everything on the offense, and we’ve seen improvement across the board. We’ve seen the running game go from the absolute worst in the league to somewhere around average or slightly below, even with injuries mounting in the backfield and offensive line. We’ve seen stars made out of Golden Tate and Marvin Jones, despite the huge shoes they have had to fill given Calvin Johnson’s sudden retirement. And we’ve seen Matthew Stafford play at a level we have never seen before, despite being in the NFL for eight years now. Cooter is getting the best out of these players like we’ve never seen before.

Your turn.