Detroit Lions go through a drill with Wide Receivers Coach Antwaan Randle El
The Detroit Lions go through a drill led by wide receivers coach Antwaan Randle El during practice at Allen Park on Sunday, August 11, 2024.
The questions are not the same, and Jared Goff will take them.
No more talk of him playing against his old team for the first time. Or against the old quarterback of his new team.
Inquiries about his former coach have also largely disappeared. When Goff met with reporters outside his locker at Allen Park after practice on Tuesday, Sean McVay’s name was not mentioned once. That’s saying something, considering the Detroit Lions open their season Sunday night at Ford Field against the Los Angeles Rams.
And McVay. And Matthew Stafford.
So that’s that.
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Time has a way of changing the narrative. And Goff has been here a while. Those old narratives fade and are replaced by new ones – like his team being everyone’s favorite to win the Super Bowl.
Well, not everyone’sBut there’s no denying that the Lions are the darlings of many prognosticators. Goff, however, isn’t worried about that. His expectations haven’t changed.
“Our expectations were the same last year as they are now,” he said. “Obviously we have a lot more outside attention and teams may be circling us, certainly our division as defending champions.”
But?
“We’re trying to win the first game,” he said. “That’s all we’re trying to do, and we’re letting the outside world speak for itself. And if we win the first game, we want to win the second one and so on and so forth. So we’re really focused on that, and I know it’s a cliche, but it’s really one game at a time.”
And here it is, just as summer turns to fall and the air cools at night: Football season may be the season we most look forward to in the Midwest – except in St. Louis, I suppose, or Indiana – but it is also the season of cliches.
No other sport arouses this enthusiasm more.
You can’t blame Goff for using one. In fact, you can give him credit for admitting he uses one, as any good quarterback should. After all, confidence is essential to any good leader, and leadership is essential to any good quarterback.
And Goff is certainly a good quarterback – more than Goodin fact, by numbers and looks and, increasingly, by results. The only question remaining is whether he can lead a team to a Super Bowl victory. When Lions head coach Dan Campbell was asked earlier this week if Goff was that guy, he didn’t hesitate:
“I think he’s done everything we hoped he would do and more. I think he’s given us a stable base,” Campbell said. “A reliable, dependable guy who does what we ask of him. We take care of him, he takes care of the football. He’s going to move the ball, he’s going to be efficient, he’s going to be our captain.”
Three years ago – or even two years ago – Campbell might have ended his answer here. That was the book about Goff, wasn’t it?
Then came the second half of 2022. And then came 2023, and suddenly it didn’t seem so fair to give coordinator Ben Johnson, the offensive line, the running game and Amon-Ra St. Brown all the credit for one of the best offenses in the NFL.
Of course, they’re all important, and without them, Goff wouldn’t be playing in the NFC title game in January. But that can be said about almost every other quarterback in the league.
Campbell clearly understands this. And so he continued to talk about his quarterback after listing all the qualities of a game manager. You know, the reliabilityThe uniformityThe takes care of football.
“We’ve gotten so much more,” Campbell said. “Over the last three years, he’s just continued to grow and get better and better and honestly, I think he just wants more and keeps challenging himself and the more he does that, the more we challenge him. The more we ask of him, the more we demand of him because he can handle it and he wants it. So wherever he can go, that’s where our offense can go.”
Think about what Campbell says here: Wherever he can go, our offense can go too.
In other words, it’s on Goff. The pieces are in place. There’s continuity on the coaching staff. He’s got a great line, playmakers on the edges, slot guys, tight ends, playmakers trickling out of the backfield.
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Where this offense and this team goes is his responsibility. That’s how it’s perceived in the NFL. To a certain extent, that’s reality. Goff knows that, too.
As Campbell said, “I think he just wants it more.”
The next step, yes. And also the last step.
“So we’re asking a lot of him,” Campbell continued. “And we’re going to ask him to do a little bit more than he did last year because he can handle it. He’s proven that.”
Now, no offense can win without a decent defense, and so the Lions have done their best in the offseason to improve this team. And no quarterback can win without a few playmakers, with the exception of Patrick Mahomes (though even he has a star, Travis Kelce).
Mahomes also had one of the stingiest defenses in the NFL last season. And when his team won two Super Bowls in the last few seasons, he had one of the best collections of playmakers in the league. What are we saying? That even Mahomes is not a one-man show – even if it feels and looks like it.
Luckily for the Lions, Goff doesn’t have to be Mahomes.
Campbell said: “That’s why we have players around him on offense, that’s why we play defense and that’s why we play special teams.”
But they need him to be the best Goff ever – to take on the extra responsibility his team gives him and make a difference.
Campbell believes he can do it. Goff also believes he is ready.
As for Sunday’s opening game against his old team and the focus on that story, he is grateful that it is now Lions vs Ramsjust like it Lions vs Buccaneers in week 2.
At least it makes it “a little easier to answer these questions.”
Especially because the old questions are no longer there.
Contact Shawn Windsor: [email protected]. Follow him @shawnwindsor.
