It was easy to land on at least one or two narratives when Jared Goff was traded to the Lions, and he thinks he has debunked them.
When the Detroit Lions traded Matthew Stafford to the Los Angeles Rams two years ago, at his request, Jared Goff was practically a throw-in coming back to Detroit. The Lions needed someone to play quarterback, and the Rams surely added a second first-round pick to the deal as an incentive to take on the then ill-advised extension they gave Goff.
As Goff’s play fell off in his last years with the Rams, the book was seemingly out on him and it was was easy to chalk him as a product of Sean McVay. The first half or a little better of his first season with the Lions in 2021 did nothing to change that, even if a thin wide receiver group didn’t exactly line him up to succeed.
This year, with a full season working with offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, Goff thrived and had one of the best seasons of his career. He has locked himself in as the starting quarterback next season, which was a big question going into the season.
Jared Goff feels he has dismissed narrative about trade to Lions
To be fair, Lions general manager Brad Holmes said he didn’t see Goff as a bridge quarterback upon acquiring him. That was the expected sentiment, believable at the time or not, and Holmes hasn’t really waivered from it.
Goff was on the “Slow News Day” podcast with The Ringer’s Kevin Clark earlier this week. He talked about the narrative surrounding him when he was traded to the Lions, and some of what he said feels like pieces of advice he would have given Derek Carr at the Pro Bowl last weekend.
It always feel good to play well and there’s always a million narratives that go on, certainly when you play quarterback,” “Breaking those narratives is sometimes harder than people creating them.”
I think back, sometimes when one team doesn’t believe in you, it doesn’t mean that everyone doesn’t believe in you,” said Goff. “I think that’s what may have gotten confused amongst the national audience, is that (just because) one group of people didn’t, doesn’t mean everyone didn’t.”
Goff still has something to prove next season, and his future with the Lions beyond next season is still unclear. But he has done a lot to squash the narrative(s) that followed him to Detroit, simply by playing well.