The Detroit Lions had never experienced the kind of continuity and consistency at the quarterback position that Matthew Stafford provided. Not in my lifetime, not in my father’s lifetime (who was born in 1960), so not in the entire Super Bowl era for an organization that’s been in the NFL since 1930. The closest names are Eric Hipple or Scott Mitchell, but they both only started 57 games respectively for Detroit—Stafford started 165 games for the Lions.
When Detroit honored Stafford’s wish to not go through another general manager and coaching change, it was the first time the franchise had truly bottomed out since he arrived to the league’s first winless franchise in 2009. It was a difficult reality to face what felt like the organization’s first true rebuild in over a decade, and it felt that way because Stafford was the football embodiment of stability and remained a constant source of optimism. When Stafford arrived, he and Jim Schwartz represented the new era in Detroit until 7-9 was no longer good enough—a relatively successful season in Detroit since the year 2000. From there, Jim Caldwell was supposed to take Detroit to the next level until 9-7 was no longer good enough.
What happened after that is sort of hairy, mostly just flashes of hills, all-terrain vehicles, and braggadocious reminders of accomplishments from years past. And if you’re a fan of our Twitch page, a lot of nacho cheese.
But this is all a long-winded way to contextualize just how radical it felt for Detroit to enter the football unknown without their reason for faith under center. On top of that, they were replacing him with Jared Goff, a player discarded by one of the league’s most innovative and respected offensive minds in Sean McVay. Stafford rarely felt like the reason Detroit couldn’t win a playoff game, but the Los Angeles Rams saw him as the guy who could get them over the hump after reaching the Super Bowl a few years prior.
Fast forward and the Rams got their Super Bowl. Stafford was mostly good, avoided some bad luck, and finally led a team to the Lombardi Trophy. A couple of years later, Goff led the Lions to their first playoff win, second playoff win, and was less than 30 football minutes away from the team’s first Super Bowl appearance. After signing a contract extension worth over $200 million this offseason, the Lions look like they have another stable signal caller and the trade has worked out for both sides. And it should continue to pay dividends with Detroit’s general manager—and former Rams front office member—Brad Holmes leading the way in personnel decisions.
Speaking of making the right decisions more often than not, that’s Goff’s superpower, too. He’s more Clark Kent than he is Superman. He’s not able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. He’s not faster than a speeding bullet. But he can be trusted to make the right decision more times than not: he only has 18 turnovers in his past 28 games. Since 2021, no quarterback in the NFL has a lower interception rate over a 38-game span—essentially from Detroit’s first win in 2021 through the end of last season—than Goff at just 1.4%.
When your quarterback isn’t turning the ball over, he’s not leaving points on the table and the defense isn’t stuck out on the field for too much time, potentially getting put in tough spots on their own side of the field or their backs against the goal line. Last year, Goff turned the ball over 16 times in the regular season, but nine of those came in just three games
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