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:
1. The Lions are stacked
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?
2. Goff’s seasons end badly
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. Tom Brady went 2-5 in the playoffs when his team’s defense gave up more than 30 points, as most quarterbacks do lose those games.
Goff’s teams are 0-3 when they allow 30 points in the playoffs compared to 5-2 when they don’t.
So again, if you think you never have to be worried about Jared Goff winning a Super Bowl, think again. He could play terrible (as Manning did in 2006) and win the Super Bowl. Should that really change your opinion of him?
“Will the Rams regret trading Goff?”
What if I told you that the question doesn’t matter? It doesn’t have to be framed as regret for trading Goff because I already KNOW the answer for most of you: “No, the Rams won a Super Bowl with Stafford, so that’s nothing to regret”.
Good answer.
Here’s the real question:
Do the Rams regret not building a better offense?
It’s been proven by the Detroit Lions that you can build an offense around Jared Goff that has allowed him to reach these numbers since 2022:
- 110 touchdowns vs only 33 interceptions
- 104.3 passer rating in 57 games
- 68.8% completion percentage
His numbers have actually gotten BETTER this season after losing OC Ben Johnson, a move to the Bears that many predicted would be the downfall of Detroit’s offense. Whether Goff has the best supporting cast or not, the Lions not only proved it could be done but that it could be done without any absurd investments on the offensive side of the ball.
Other than Penei Sewell (pick 7), Williams (pick 12, trade up), and Gibbs (pick 12), the Lions haven’t poured anything insane into making Goff better. And none of those were top-5 picks. They did use the two picks from the Rams to get Williams (who is just pretty good, not outstanding yet) and Gibbs, but this is largely an offense of players who any team could have had, including St. Brown, Montgomery, and even LaPorta, a second round pick.
It would have only taken a tiny trade up for the Rams to get LaPorta instead of Steve Avila, who went two picks later.
The point is not that the Rams will rue the day that the traded Goff. No, that’s NOT the point.
The point is:
- Jared Goff exists
- The Rams didn’t have faith in Jared Goff
- The Lions had faith in Jared Goff
- The Lions feel confident that Goff has rewarded their faith, and then some
If Goff would have never succeeded in L.A. (beyond those times he was good from 2017-2020), at least some of the responsibility for that has to be on the Rams. There has to be some accountability that if Goff can be among the league’s best QBs for DETROIT (I haven’t even mentioned the fact that he’s doing this for a franchise that historically never has success) then surely there was a timeline where he would have been successful for the Rams.
And if the ONLY THING that keeps you from believing that is winning a Super Bowl, which isn’t even totally the responsibility of the Quarterback, I hope you are prepared to eat those words because if Jalen Hurts and Nick Foles and Joe Flacco and Eli Manning can all win Super Bowls, I promise you that the 2025 Detroit Lions are good enough. And given how good they’ve looked under Dan Campbell and Brad Holmes, there’s almost no chance that 2025 is Goff’s last chance to win one.
Then there’s the Baker Mayfield of it all.
Keeping Baker would have been a bold move
Would it have been the right move?
The Rams were in an almost impossible position when they ended the 2022 season and Baker Mayfield had shown signs of life for the first time since his early days in Cleveland: Stafford had been extended the previous summer and Mayfield wanted to go somewhere he could compete to start. The Bucs were offering (not many teams were though) and the Rams clearly felt they had no recourse to keep him even though Stafford was recovering from an injury and would be 35.
Mayfield is seven years younger than Stafford. If he and Goff were to play until Stafford’s current age, that would make them among the NFL’s top QBs during the 2032 season.
In his third season with Tampa Bay — and on his third different offensive coordinator while dealing with injuries at every angle on the Bucs offense — Mayfield is one of the frontrunners for MVP as the Bucs sit at 5-1 and in a power position in the NFC. Either the Lions or Bucs seem to be the favorites for the number one seed.
Mayfield leads the NFL with four game-winning drives, all of which were fourth quarter comebacks. He has 12 touchdowns and one interception, ranking top-10 in every major category. Although Stafford’s numbers are almost the same as Mayfield’s, it is no less interesting that Mayfield was a temporary fill-in for Stafford only three years ago.
Now some are calling him the best quarterback in the NFL. He’s almost the anti-Goff: The QB who gets it done even when he has nothing.
How will Stafford do without Puka Nacua?
How long are Mayfield and Goff going to look this good?
In your opinions, how serious are Mayfield and Goff in terms of contention for being the NFC’s best quarterbacks over the next 5 seasons? Will both of them still be among the league leaders in 2026, 2027, or even 2030? Or is this just a flash in the pan moment? (Pretty long “moments” already for both of them, however).
It’s not that the Rams should regret losing either of these quarterbacks. It’s that there are a million different ways to build a team and the Lions and Bucs are both happy that quarterbacks who couldn’t or wouldn’t have worked in L.A. are working out spectacularly for them.
Is Sean McVay the QB whisperer or is it the opposite: He’s so unsure of how to build a QB that the Rams needed to trade for a veteran who needs no coaching?
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