ALLEN PARK, Mich. -- The Detroit Lions, like many teams around the NFL, have their issues. There are barriers between Detroit and a playoff berth. The possibility is there -- all one needs to do is look around the league to see the flaws from almost every team -- but to make it happen, some things need to change.

Thanks to the Week 7 bye, Detroit's coaches have had a chance over the past week to self-scout and find ways to improve. The Lions usually have been good about this. In head coach Jim Caldwell’s three previous seasons with the Lions, they have gone 15-8 after the bye. Detroit would need similar success this season to be a playoff team.

Here are some things the Lions can do to get there, besides the obvious of winning games.

Offensive playcalling: This is not advocating a change in coordinator or playcaller -- that’s not necessary -- but rather a loosening of the conservatism with which offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter has been calling plays. This is particularly true early in games. In Matthew Stafford, the Lions have one of the strongest-armed quarterbacks in the game. Take advantage of that. Stafford can make any throw the team asks him to.

Some of the reason the Lions haven’t done this might not be on Cooter and Caldwell. Defenses have taken away deep options in many cases, and the injury to Kenny Golladay hasn’t helped with a receiving corps lacking a true deep option. Caldwell says every play has a deep, intermediate and short option. The Lions, for whatever reason, rarely seem to take the deep option. Golden Tate’s shoulder injury, for however long he is out, might force the Lions to open the offensive package a little more as well. But Detroit needs to be more aggressive, particularly early in games.

Front-four pressure: The Lions have been average in reaching opposing quarterbacks. That’s better than last season, when Detroit didn't sack quarterbacks much at all. But the pressure needs to improve if the Lions are going to be a playoff team. The defense's 13 sacks in six games are 10 fewer than the Detroit offense has allowed. Although it isn't a comparable stat, it shows how much a team can be impacted by pressuring the quarterback. Detroit is blitzing on 24.7 percent of opponent dropbacks, which is middle-of-the-road in the league, but Detroit has the second-worst quarterback pressure rate in the league (20.6). If the Lions can improve that, their defense should be more productive.

Protect Stafford: It’s getting ridiculous at this point. To be clear, some of this is on Stafford to get rid of the ball more quickly and throw it away when necessary. But he’s on pace to be sacked 61 times this season, and the 23 sacks allowed so far are tied for worst in the league. Yes, the offensive line has had major injury problems, but it also has allowed Stafford to be hit enough to have multiple injuries this season, and the Lions aren’t even at the halfway point of the season.

The bye week should help allow Stafford to heal, but there’s bad news coming up. After the bye, Detroit faces Pittsburgh and Green Bay, top-10 teams in the league in pressure percentage. The Lions also play four of the top 10 blitzing teams in the league (Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago twice) over the past 10 games of the season. Getting Taylor Decker back at some point should help, as should rest for T.J. Lang and Rick Wagner.

Eric Ebron: It has been a rough season for the former first-round draft pick. He has been largely healthy so far, which is a positive. But he has also turned into an almost nonexistent part of the team’s offense. He has 13 catches for 102 yards -- and three drops. His drop percentage of 12 percent is the highest he has had in a season in his career. His targets have gone down, too, since his two-drop game in a loss to Atlanta. He hasn’t been targeted more than five times in a game since, including just two targets on 52 pass attempts from Stafford in a loss to the Saints.

Other than the injured players, the bye week might be most important for Ebron. It’ll give him some time with his family -- he’s expecting to become a father for the first time shortly -- and some time to get away from what has been a bad start. Perhaps that will help him refocus. If it doesn’t, the timeshare between Ebron and Darren Fells, who is a better blocker and has 10 catches for 101 yards and three touchdowns this season, might go away. Michael Roberts could be a wild card here. If he shows improvement, he could take more snaps from Ebron, too. If Ebron can get himself right, he has the talent to be a mismatch for opposing defenses. That’s a big if at this point.

Free up Ezekiel Ansah: There are times when Ansah looks like the Pro Bowl version of himself. But there also have been stretches when Ansah has disappeared from games. He’s on pace for double-digit sacks, which is a good thing, but he hasn’t been the consistent playmaking defensive end he was in 2014 and 2015. He’s getting a lot of attention from opposing offensive lines because of his past play, but Detroit has to find ways to get him free. How does that happen? Either with defensive line games up front or another pass-rusher emerging. It sounds simplistic, but a havoc-wreaking Ansah should make the Lions' defense one of the better ones in the league.