Jared Goff in the playoffs: Lions vs. Commanders live chat

JARED GOFF! JARED GOFF! JARED GOFF!

Time: 5 PM Pacific, 8 PM Eastern

TV: FOX

Jared Goff has become a hero in Detroit. Here is an article from Hallie Grossman of ESPN about his impact, and how he built up his resilience at Cal:

THERE'S A VERSION of this story that doesn't feature a happy ending for Jared Goff in Detroit. Or, technically speaking, a happy new beginning.

He was shipped off to this town -- not his words, but his father's, and his old college coordinator's, and his current left tackle's -- where football failure had become noxious and pervasive, like the pollution from the neighborhood auto plants. In Los Angeles, Goff's relationship with Sean McVay -- wunderkind, offensive guru, Goff-whisperer, or so popular theory went -- had frayed gradually, then quickly and painfully. In the span of two weeks in January 2021, Goff went from McVay's "quarterback right now" to quarterback discarded to Detroit. Goff was, the Rams and the NFL intelligentsia seemed fairly certain, now someone else's problem.

"For many guys, that would break them," says Tony Franklin, Goff's offensive coordinator and QB coach from his Cal days. For here, Franklin goes on, was the message delivered to Goff: "You're not good enough, you're not smart enough, you're not tough enough, you're not the guy that I want, we're gonna trade you, get rid of you."

He wasn't merely offloaded in 2021. The Rams had to part ways with Goff and first-round draft picks to make the deal palatable for prospective trade partners. Once he landed in Detroit, he was, charitably speaking, relegated to bridge quarterback. The guy to tread water until the Lions could find The Guy. (At least outside the confines of Ford Field. Inside, then-newly-hired Lions GM Brad Holmes said he never once considered Goff a stopgap. "He's been successful. He has a lot of wins. He's been to the playoffs," Holmes said in June 2021, before Goff had played a down for the Lions. "I don't know why he doesn't have a chance to be successful." Put less charitably, he was damaged goods.

In those hazy, disorienting days before and after the trade -- "We were spinning," says Goff's father, Jerry -- the Goffs had neither the time nor clarity of mind to really ponder Dan Campbell, the new head coach Detroit had hired just 10 days before landing Goff. But Sonny Dykes did. Dykes had coached Goff in his three years in Berkeley, and his investment in Goff compelled him to pull up the tape of Campbell's inaugural news conference. The new coach spent several minutes expounding on what his guiding principles would be in Detroit -- which culminated, he promised without a hint of satire or hyperbole, with a commitment to biting kneecaps off.

"Jared's in the right place," Dykes thought to himself. "The two of 'em are gonna create magic."

The Lions play Washington on Saturday night as the NFC's No. 1 seed for the first time in franchise history, so magic was indeed created, even if it was a slow burn. In the first 24 games of the Campbell-Goff era, the Lions won four; since November 2022, they are 35-9. They added two playoff wins last season, double the franchise's total postseason victories from the previous 66 years. And "bridge quarterback" Goff morphed into a quarterback the team doesn't just win in spite of, or even with.

This season he has: the sixth-best QBR in the league (68.5); six games with an 80% completion rate, the most in NFL history; an NFL-best 18 touchdown passes on third and fourth downs, with no interceptions on such downs.

Even with a roster replete with stars, the Lions often win because of Goff.

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