Before the bye week it was clear as day that the Detroit Lions were going to extend Jared Goff after this season. He was going to get paid no doubt. He was the leagues highest graded quarterback per PFF, the ball security issues seem to be gone, he was handling pressure well and the Lions were winning. Then the bye week happened.
Since then this is what Jared Goff’s stat line has looked like. 117-172 for 1,275 yards, nine touchdowns, five interceptions and four fumbles. He’s completed 64.4% of his passes.
Maybe that’s not too bad. I thought it might be worse before I started adding it all up. It’s the turnovers that are the real issue here. Goff has turned the ball over nine times in five games. Nearly all of them have been in the Lions own territory too.
This is clearly a problem for the Lions, but it’s a problem for Goff too. Every time he has a bad game or a turnover, you can see the value of what that extension is going to be going downwards. That’s right, I still think it happens. Goff has displayed far more good play than he has bad play. But the money he could get and the years he could get might be changing in these past few weeks.
The Lions do have Hendon Hooker in the wings and if he can show that he can be a good quarterback in the NFL, that could affect Goff down the road.
It’s not all lost though. Goff has four games and the playoffs to get things back on track and show that he’s the guy for this team. I personally don’t have any reason to believe that he can’t. We’ve seen him go into ruts and we’ve seen him work himself out of them too. Let’s see if he can do it again this time.