There are a ton of crazy statistics to come out of the Detroit Lions’ 52-21 beatdown of the Chicago Bears. Perhaps the most notable is that the Lions’ 8.8 yards per play set a franchise record, which seems impossible given how good the offense has been in recent years.
However, I may have a stat that comes close to beating that. Over at FTN Fantasy (the new-ish home of DVOA), Aaron Schatz shared a statistic about Jared Goff’s afternoon against the Bears. Goff had a near-perfect game, completing 23-of-28 passes for 334 yards, five touchdowns, and a 156.0 passer rating. He took zero sacks and even scrambled for six yards.
Schatz’s statistic is called DYAR, which stands for “Defense-adjusted Yards Above Replacement.” It attempts to measure a performance against an average-level replacement player. Every week, Schatz lists the DYAR for every quarterback and the top performers at receiver and running back.
Not only did Goff produce the highest DYAR of Week 2 at 258 (second closest was Daniel Jones at 139), but his performance was historic for any Lions quarterback.
Note: It’s worth noting that the DYAR (and DVOA) stat is not defense-adjusted until four weeks into the season, meaning that there is currently no adjustment to how good the defense each player is going up against.
“Pending the addition of opponent adjustments later in the season, Goff had the No. 2 DYAR game by a Detroit Lions quarterback since our numbers began in 1978,” Schatz wrote in his Week 2 commentary. “He only trails what Scott Mitchell did against a very good Vikings defense in Week 13 of 1995, when he had 288 DYAR on 30-of-45 passing with 395 yards and four touchdowns.”
In other words, it’s been 30 years since we’ve seen such an efficient performance from a Lions quarterback, and it’s nearly the best of its kind in the past 47 years. If the Chicago Bears’ defense turns out to be pretty good, it’s entirely possible that Goff’s performance eclipses that of Mitchell’s in 1995.
Lions coach Dan Campbell offered some pretty high praise of Goff’s performance.
“We’ve got a guy who—he makes it right, he sees it fast, he lays it up. And I thought Goff played out of his mind, it was awesome,” Campbell said. “He was composed, he was on point, and I just thought he commanded the offense to precision, and it was great to see.”
You have to imagine this is the kind of performance that will earn Goff some accolades later in the week.
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