With 30 of 32 NFL teams now in the offseason, it’s a good time to review the Detroit Lions’ 2025 roster and how they performed, but also to look forward to 2026 and how the team may address each position.
We’ll kick off the series with quarterbacks, where the Lions find themselves in a perfectly fine position at starter, but some small questions at depth.
Lions 2025 recap: Quarterback
Jared Goff stats:
- 4,564 yards (second in NFL)
- 68.0% completion percentage (sixth)
- 7.9 yards per attempt (sixth)
- 105.5 passer rating (third)
- +0.13 EPA/dropback (fifth)
- 38 sacks (eighth-most)
Goff posted yet another top-10 quarterback season bordering on a top-five performance, despite having less support from the run game and offensive line. In all honesty, if the Lions were more competitive as an overall team, he likely would have been in the MVP conversation for most of the year.
Goff was far from perfect. He chose to have his worst performance of the year against the Minnesota Vikings in a literal must-win game, and he struggled against the Eagles, as well. But let’s be clear: Goff was not a problem this year.
In fact, you could make an argument that Goff is playing the best football of his career right now. Let’s take those same stats above, but ranking them compared to every other one of Goff’s 10 years in the NFL:
- 4,564 yards (fifth)
- 68.0% completion percentage (second)
- 7.9 yards per attempt (fourth)
- 105.5 passer rating (second)
- +0.13 EPA/dropback (fourth)
- 38 sacks (10th)
Of course, there will always be critics of a team’s quarterback when their team doesn’t make the playoffs, and some are certain the Lions could never win with a quarterback like Goff—especially in the age of mobile quarterbacks—but perhaps the success of Sam Darnold can provide some hope in the modern NFL.
As for the team’s depth, they pulled the plug on the Hendon Hooker experiment after training camp, electing to ride with Kyle Allen as their primary backup. Thankfully, the Lions never had to rely upon Allen.
In the middle of the season, Detroit also signed mobile quarterback/wide receiver Malik Cunningham and C.J. Beathard to the practice squad.
Note: Cunningham occasionally worked as a scout-team quarterback, but practiced mostly as a wide receiver.
Outlook for 2026
Currently under contract:
- QB Jared Goff (through 2028)
- QB/WR Malik Cunningham (futures deal)
Free agents
- QB Kyle Allen (unrestricted)
- QB C.J. Beathard (street free agent, can sign anywhere right now)
The first quarterback-related move on the agenda is to restructure Jared Goff’s contract. The Lions are currently projected to be nearly $17 million over the 2026 salary cap, so they need to make some moves before they can even sign any free agents. The easiest way to do that is to restructure Goff’s $55 million salary, which is currently costing $69.6 million against the cap. If the Lions want to go extreme with the restructure, they can clear up a tad over $40 million in cap space. The risk in doing that is you kick that $40 million in guarantees into future years of Goff’s deal. But with the 31-year-old quarterback still playing in his prime, that may not be the risk it sounds like. By all accounts, Goff will be this team’s quarterback for the next three years minimum.
It will be interesting to see how the Lions approach the backup position. It could be as simple as re-signing Allen to a one-year deal. Last year, he played on the veteran minimum, costing just $1.13 million against the cap. For a team looking to save money where they can, that may be the best approach again in 2026. Allen hasn’t started a game since 2022, but he is an eight-year veteran who had a strong preseason with Detroit last year.
Will the Lions be seeking a new, young quarterback to replace Hooker? Will they look to upgrade their backup with a more experienced vet? It wouldn’t hurt, but with few offseason resources and more pressing needs elsewhere, running it back may be the best option for Detroit at quarterback.
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