Among the assets the Detroit Lions received from the Los Angeles Rams in the January 2021 trade for Matthew Stafford was the Rams’ 2023 first-round pick, which would be in the top five if the season ended today. Los Angeles figured it eventually would pay for its all-in approach to roster building, and it appears the bill is coming due sooner than expected.
Yet in a surprising twist, the quarterback the Rams were so eager to cast off in that trade, Jared Goff, has started to look like a prized possession for the Lions. The No. 1 overall pick in 2016 has been playing so well of late it’s fair to wonder whether they might build around him and forgo using the pick they received from the Rams on a quarterback even though next year’s draft has a number of enticing prospects at the position.
If nothing else, it’s clear Goff has earned the confidence of his coaches in Detroit.
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With the 28-year-old enjoying one of the most productive stretches of his seven-year NFL career, his team has turned its season around. The Lions were 3-13-1 a year ago in Goff’s first season with Lions, and they started 1-6 this season but have gone 5-1 since. At 6-7, Detroit is in contention for its first playoff appearance since 2016 and just its fourth since the turn of the millennium.
“I really just enjoy winning with these guys,” Goff said Wednesday, “and whatever people may have said earlier on in the year, they were probably justified in some ways. We were 1-6 and not playing very well.
“Now we are playing pretty well, and everyone seems to have changed their mind on us, and we try to stay right in the middle. I think that’s the biggest challenge for us now is show our maturity and show we can handle a little bit of praise.”
To do that — and rewrite Detroit’s plans at quarterback — Goff must lead the squad through a difficult closing slate that begins Sunday at the New York Jets. Three of the Lions’ final four regular season games are on the road, and all are against teams in the top half of the league in passing defense, including a pair of top-five units in the Jets and Green Bay Packers.
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By comparison, Detroit just enjoyed five home games in a seven-game stretch, and its past two foes, the Jacksonville Jaguars and Minnesota Vikings, are in the bottom five in passing yardage allowed. Recent Lions teams were largely unable to take advantage of any favorable schedules. This group, led by second-year coach Dan Campbell and featuring a stout offensive line, talented skill-position players and an emerging defense, has the look of a growing threat.
To judge from comments this week, Campbell has come a long way in his appraisal of Goff since October 2021, when he said after a loss dropped the Lions to 0-6, “It’s time to step up and make some throws and do some things.”
When Detroit reached its bye week at 0-8-1, Campbell did something by relieving offensive coordinator Anthony Lynn of play-calling duties and elevating tight ends coach Ben Johnson to passing game coordinator. Goff responded by posting a 107.1 passer rating over his final five starts in 2021 with 11 touchdowns to just two interceptions, not to mention leading the Lions to their only three wins. Johnson has drawn widespread praise this season for his work as the new offensive coordinator, and apart from a two-game October interlude in which Detroit was throttled by the New England Patriots and Dallas Cowboys, Goff has mostly continued that upward trend.
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“I would say it’s grown as the season’s gone on,” Campbell said Monday of his level of confidence in Goff. “ … There were things early, when we were really trying to outscore, really trying to push the ball, there’d be times where you’re holding your breath. You get the risk, but, man, be careful with it. And it bit us a little bit. …
“It’s been a long time [since then], and I have complete faith in the guy,” Campbell continued. “He’s done an unbelievable job just getting us in the right play, decision-making, his ball accuracy. He made about three or four throws yesterday with pressure right in his face.”
Those remarks came after Goff threw for 330 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions or sacks taken and a 120.7 rating in last week’s 34-23 win over the NFC North-leading Minnesota Vikings (10-3). That gave him 3,352 passing yards and 22 touchdowns this season, better numbers in 13 starts than he had in 14 last year. Goff is also posting his best marks since 2018 in notable categories such as touchdown pass percentage (5.0), yards per attempt (7.5), passer rating (97.9) and total quarterback rating (61.2).
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While Pro Football Focus gives Goff just the 25th-best grade in passing among quarterbacks with at least 100 attempts, some advanced statistics paint a more flattering picture.
In Football Outsiders’ defense-adjusted yards above replacement, its primary metric for quarterbacks, Goff sits in third place, just behind the Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes and the Miami Dolphins’ Tua Tagovailoa. Goff is ninth in expected points added per play (via rbsdm.com), just as he is in the top 10 in a number of traditional quarterback statistics.
All of this individual success has begun to alter a narrative that Goff, who was dreadful as a rookie under then-Rams coach Jeff Fisher, was a creation of Sean McVay’s innovative schemes in Los Angeles. Once opponents started to catch on to what McVay’s Rams were doing, possibly starting with an ugly, 13-3 loss to Bill Belichick’s Patriots in Super Bowl LIII, Goff’s many limitations were exposed. Or so it appeared. And perhaps what’s happening now is the arrival of the NFL’s next offensive wunderkind in Johnson, who is garnering plenty of buzz as a head coaching candidate.
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Still, it’s one thing for an offensive coordinator to scribble down a great scheme and another for his quarterback to execute it.
“Jared Goff can make pretty much every throw in this league that we’d ever ask him to do,” Johnson said this month after Goff held his own against a tough Bills defense and just before he strafed the Jaguars for 340 yards on 75.6 percent passing. “I’ve got confidence in that.”
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