The Detroit Lions are ready to open the season with Jared Goff as their new field general. How Goff performs will decide what the Lions do next April.
It’s a new season with a new regime and a new quarterback. It couldn’t possibly smell more like a rebuild if the Lions just cut everyone and started signing players off the street. Actually, I guess they did a little of that already, didn’t they?
New general manager Brad Holmes and head coach Dan Campbell have taken the town by storm. Unlike their predecessors, Holmes isn’t afraid to speak to the press and doesn’t hide away from the media until his own personally designated groundhog day when he pops out of his office and gives little to no answers about his team.
As for Campbell, well, if the previous regime thought that everything is a covert operation and giving out information was taboo, Motor City Dan is as diametrically the opposite as he can be. Campbell is more than willing to beguile the press by telling them the plain simple truth and then watch them stare in disbelief when they find out he wasn’t spinning any coach-speak.
There is literally nothing that Dan Campbell has done that he didn’t tell the media he was going to do. In his honesty, he has built a bridge to Lions fans that we have not seen in decades. The Honolulu Blue and Silver faithful have appreciated his candor and if for no other reason hope he succeeds.
If Holmes and Campbell don’t succeed it won’t be from a lack of effort in their talent searches, assembling an outstanding coaching staff, or galvanizing a locker room that had completely rebelled against the previous regime.
This season is about laying the foundation, but that doesn’t mean Dan Campbell doesn’t want to win. He’s willing to go through growing pains, but if he can lead the Lions to victory on Sundays he will do so.
Probably the biggest key to the success or failure of these Lions will be the play of quarterback Jared Goff. Holmes and Campbell have said he is ‘the man’ and Goff himself expects to be Detroit’s new franchise passer. However, what these Motor City cats do in next April’s draft will be a direct result of how Goff performs.
The Lions are a wake-up call for Jared Goff
What Jared Goff thinks of himself and what Lions fans think of him seem to be two different things. While Goff sees himself as a capable field general who can lead Detroit to the Super Bowl, most of the fans see him as a stopgap on the way to their next franchise quarterback.
When the Rams used the number one overall pick in the 2016 NFL draft to select Jared Goff, they expected him to be the quarterback who would lift them out of mediocrity and take them to the Super Bowl.
In a way, they were right as Goff was a big contributor to the Rams run to Super Bowl LIII.
Yet Goff didn’t carry the Rams on his shoulders and when his rushing attack struggled like it did the last couple of seasons, so did Goff.
Now for the first time in his life, Goff is about to open a season with a non-Californian team. He was a Golden State hero from grade school to high school to college then the Rams.
When Sean McVay and the Rams decided to cut ties with Goff and targeted Matthew Stafford as their answer to their quarterback prayers, that was the first time Goff had been doubted. Yet to be fair, Jared did struggle the last two years with turnovers, and in a league where turnovers have often been the difference between the winners and losers, the idea of change was not a new one.
One way or another Jared Goff has a new lease on life. He is no longer the California hometown hero. He has been transplanted to the Motor City. He is now in a different world than he grew up in and is fortunate to have the backing of Brad Holmes and Dan Campbell.
From the offseason workouts to training camp, we have heard about how crisp and accurate Goff has been. Some have said this has been a wake-up call for Goff and it has renewed his focus. The truth is that it should be a wake-up call because if he fails, he will be in for another rude awakening.
Jared Goff is already a polarizing figure in Detroit
Brad Holmes was part of the Los Angeles Rams scouting department when they used the first pick in the 2016 draft to select Jared Goff.
Today Holmes is the general manager of the Detroit Lions. A job that he was happy to land, but immediately had the problem to address of Matthew Stafford requesting a trade.
It became a trade where both teams got something they wanted. Sean McVay believes that Stafford will be the difference in the Rams finishing the deal and winning the Super Bowl. Meanwhile, Holmes got valuable draft capital and a quarterback he is familiar with to lead the Lions.
How long Goff will lead the Lions is purely up to him.
While most of us believe that Holmes will draft his real quarterback of the future next April or even the following spring, that is a decision that will be made completely based on how Goff plays.
If Goff plays like a franchise quarterback, then Campbell will utilize him as such and Holmes with use the Lions’ draft picks on other needs. If Jared continues to be turnover-prone, then if Holmes does draft a quarterback it will be a direct result of Goff’s play.
Let’s be honest, if Goff turns it on and plays well, then it will be really easy to address other needs and not worry about finding a franchise quarterback in the draft. In Goff’s only preseason appearance he was solid. Not spectacular, but very solid.
In his short time in Detroit Jared Goff has become a polarizing figure. How he handles this opportunity will determine who will be the Lions’ quarterback of the future. It really is that simple. Much like the willingness that Holmes and Campbell had to send Breshad Perriman packing when he didn’t pan out, it will be the same for Goff.
If Goff can prove his skeptics wrong and play like a franchise quarterback, Holmes and Campbell will view him as just that. But if he proves his critics right and does not play well, then Goff himself will have basically cemented the selection of his successor.
The Detroit Lions and NFC North 2021 season preview
The 2021 Detroit Lions are a very different team than last year. The question that remains, however, is whether they are any more competitive.