Turf Show Times
If the only thing separating Jared Goff from “elite” is winning a Super Bowl, skeptics shouldn’t hold their breath. Far worse quarterbacks than Goff have won the Super Bowl and the Detroit Lions are as good as any team in the NFC despite losing to the Kansas City Chiefs on Monday Night Football. Coincidentally if there are two quarterbacks in the conference who stand between Goff and the Super Bowl, they are either playing or have played for Sean McVay’s Rams: Matthew Stafford and Baker Mayfield.
But is McVay the real “quarterback whisperer” if he couldn’t get as much out of Goff as the Lions have?
Through six weeks, Goff leads the NFL in completion percentage (75.9%) and touchdowns (14) while only throwing 2 interceptions and posting a career-best passer rating of 120.6. If we weren’t living in the current era of passing, completing 76% of your attempts and a rating over 120 would be considered Peyton Manning-ish (by the way, Manning didn’t win a Super Bowl until he was Goff’s age and he was actually terrible in the playoffs that year), but for Jared Goff the accomplishments are barely even recognized.
There are a couple of good reasons for this:
It’s no secret that the Lions have a top-tier offensive line, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Sam LaPorta, Jahmyr Gibbs, David Montgomery, and Jameson Williams. Because of this, it’s common to say that “any good QB” could be great in the Lions offense and there’s some truth to that. However, Goff is not Jalen Hurts. He’s a much better quarterback than Hurts and secretly the Eagles might agree. Wouldn’t A.J. Brown be happier with a better passer under center, even at the cost of a tush push?
Pretty much every playoff run by Goff has ended with him playing poorly in a loss. Obviously Goff has lost 5 playoff games, so his postseason always ends in a loss, but last year he threw three picks in a division round loss to Washington after getting a first round BYE. The Patriots Super Bowl will be on everyone’s minds until it isn’t.
That being said, Goff’s teams have scored 31 points in three straight playoff games and those offenses average over 26 points per game. That should be enough. His interceptions hurt last year, but Detroit’s defense also got gashed by the Commanders offense (45 points) and the defenses on Goff teams have consistently been bad with the exception of that Super Bowl.
I am by no means a Jared Goff defender, but it would be disingenuous to argue that Hurts playoff record hasn’t be helped by Philly’s defense, just as Tom Brady’s did for most of his Super Bowl runs: The Patriots didn’t give up 30 points in a Tom Brady playoff game until 2007. Before then, they had held 13 straight playoff teams under 30 points while Brady was the QB.
And yes, the Patriots lost that game 38-34....
