A long time ago, Detroit Lions quarterback Jon Kitna threw a bucket of water on me.
OK, it was actually center Dominic Raiola who did the throwing, ostensibly as a prank to soak Kitna on his birthday while he was speaking with reporters in the locker room.
But it had all the hallmarks of the kind of sophomoric caper that would have made Beavis and Butt-Head proud, which convinced me Kitna, a notorious prankster, was the mastermind. There’s no way it was a coincidence that barely a drop touched him while a bunch of writers were left soaked.
Years later, a young Matthew Stafford hurled something else, leering at reporters as he quietly called us “jackals” when we approached an embattled teammate near him in the locker room.
At the time, I resented Kitna and Stafford for not respecting the job reporters were doing. But over time I grew to appreciate their defensiveness because I recognized it as an expression of their frustration with the constant criticism they faced from reporters and fans.
THIS WEEK:Jets to start Zach Wilson at QB; Dan Campbell says Lions ‘need to win out’ to make playoffs
JEFF SEIDEL:Dan Campbell, Robert Saleh were up for the same job. Did Lions hire the right one?
It made sense. “NFL quarterback” is the most scrutinized position in sports. And in Detroit, the position carries extra decades of baggage packed with franchise misery. After a while, I even respected the quarterbacks for pushing back and talking back. It was good to see the leader of the offense playing a little defense for a change.
Then Jared Goff arrived, a castoff consolation prize in Stafford’s trade to the Los Angeles Rams. I remember feeling bad for Goff when he was a rookie on HBO’s “Hard Knocks” and he couldn’t answer a coach’s question about where the sun rises. He still gets teased about it.
Then something crazy happened. After taking the Rams to the Super Bowl in 2018, he went from being the man to persona non grata. He was called out and disrespected by coach Sean McVay. Just a few weeks after winning a road playoff game, he was ghosted by his team and left in the dark while the trade was orchestrated.
He was disrespected again when then ex-teammate Michael Brockers said Stafford was “a level up.” Now Brockers sits 10 feet away from Goff in the Lions’ locker room.
I truly felt bad for Goff when he arrived in Detroit. Stafford got to skip off into the sunset with an elite team of his choosing and Goff was relegated to the rebuild Stafford wanted no part of. Other than the great offensive line, which got hurt right away, and tight end T.J. Hockenson, the offense had no proven stars or much of an identity.
It showed right away. The Lions lost eight straight and the offense scored more than 19 points only once in its first 11 games. Goff didn’t say much, though — as we found out later — he was struggling to work with offensive coordinator Anthony Lynn.
Then it happened. I got my first glimpse of Goff’s prickly nature. When I asked him last year about ranking last in an advanced metric that measures deep-passing success, he bristled while showing a sense of humor. I loved it.
“If you guys want me to improve my yards per attempt,” he said, “I’ll overthrow everybody 50 yards over and over again and my yards per attempt will go through the roof. So I don’t plan on doing that.”
Even through the recent winning, Goff has remained prickly while becoming a little more colorful in his interactions with reporters.
When he was asked last week if he was playing the best football of his career, he said: “I don’t know. I could say a lot of smart-ass things right now, but I’m not going to.”
After Sunday’s impressive 34-23 win over the Minnesota Vikings, Goff didn’t mind rubbing it in: “It makes me feel like we’re making a lot of people eat what they said.”
When Stafford was here, I used to say if you wanted to start a fight just walk into a sports bar and exclaim: “Stafford is a great quarterback!” Now you only have to substitute Goff’s name and then watch the fists fly.
I asked Goff this week if it has been hard not to lash out during all the losing.
“What would I lash out about?” he said.
Apparently, he’s never heard of something called the World Wide Web. It felt like he was asking me to explain how tall Mount Everest is. I mentioned all the criticism he has faced from fans and media.
“Tom Brady gets criticized,” he said, “everyone gets criticized, we all get criticized. So part of this business, especially when you play quarterback, you’re going to see it.
“It’s not the first time, probably won’t be the last, and I’ll handle it just the same way as I handle success. It’s good and bad, and you go with it and move on.”
I let a couple of questions go by, then I asked Goff what part of his personality allowed him to deal with all the criticism.
“You gonna ask it again?” he shot back, drawing a few laughs.
Yes, I was asking again.
“Yeah, it’s mental toughness, but to be on both sides of it,” he said. “Like I said, you can’t let praise and criticism get to you. Like, either way, it all doesn’t matter, and it’s all very fickle, and our league’s very week-to-week, and you play poorly one week, you play better the next week, and you’ll be the greatest thing since sliced bread.
“And it’s the way our league goes. And it’s the way I’ve really approached this since I’ve gotten in the league. And sure, yeah, you take that mental rollercoaster at times, and you try not to, but we are human. And you try not to, but at the same time it is every week, it will change, no matter what. If you play well, they’ll love you, if you don’t, they won’t, so try to play well.”
That’s about as good an answer as you’ll ever get about the nature of playing quarterback. And his approach hasn’t gone unnoticed or unappreciated.
“I mean, talking about like I feel like I’ve been through it,” left tackle Taylor Decker said of facing criticism. “I can’t imagine him from the trade to come in here to the team is struggling to now he’s on fire.”
When I asked Dan Campbell what attribute has gotten Goff through so much turmoil, he mentioned how well Goff has played when the team has needed him to.
“Well, his ability to bounce back,” Campbell said. “His ability to rise to the occasion to — man, when it does look like it’s at its worst, man, he can, he can block everything out and he can refocus and say, ‘You know what? There’s all these things and all this noise that on the outside and for me to — for us to just say and for him to identify — ‘just do this better.’ …
“I think that speaks to his character. He is a resilient person. Because he has. He’s had to overcome a lot. And I think he’s in a great place right now, he’s earned that.”
After Goff finished his news conference, the scrum broke up. I turned off my recording devices and had to wait for people to move before I could leave Goff’s locker.
“Did you get what you needed?” he asked.
It was a mild invitation to continue the conversation privately. I thanked him and told him I was OK. I congratulated him on winning the FedEx Air Player of the Wweek award. He said he hadn’t heard but appreciated it.
It was a nice moment, and I have to admit I’ve developed a fondness for Goff. But I think I like him even more when he’s prickly.
Contact Carlos Monarrez: cmonarrez@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @cmonarrez.