How does Goff’s career stack up to Matthew Stafford’s at this point?
If you erase the names but put their career numbers, achievements, and accolades side by side, especially their first five years, I’m pretty sure Goff’s would be chosen every time. The situations are obviously much different (and Stafford had to work against the current much more than Goff) but there’s no such thing as a control group in the NFL; your career is your career, no asterisks, no footnotes.
Goff doesn’t have the arm strength, the legendary toughness, some of the gaudy stats, or the catalog of legendary 4th quarter clutch performances like Stafford. He doesn’t have a decade-plus of history with the city of Detroit, representing resilience and grit, resurrecting a franchise, and for a while making it competitive and exciting again.
On the other side of that, Goff also doesn’t have the playoff letdowns, the battered 33-year-old body that’s going on 53, the inevitable cynicism and pent up frustration from carrying a franchise that can’t get out of its own way, the impossible expectations.
Goff does have playoff success and individual accolades that already exceed the results Stafford has produced, and it’s likely that he’s not even close to his prime yet.
When you really get down to it though, it doesn’t really matter which of the two quarterbacks is “better”. My opinion is that Stafford is better, but not by a landslide.
It’s helpful to compare the two players, but ultimately the perception of Goff joining the Lions shouldn’t come down to Goff vs Stafford, it’s more Goff vs other quarterbacks who would have been available. Goff may not be a top ten QB at this point, but he was just a few years back, and there’s plenty of evidence to show that he has the skillset and plenty of time to become one again.