It’s not a big secret how bad Jared Goff has been, but a data point on one chart puts him in a category all his own.
A limited skill set. A limited group of wide receivers, further thinned by injuries. An offensive line that has been down its two best players. It’s all added up to Detroit Lions quarterback Jared Goff being one of the worst quarterbacks in the NFL so far this season–if not the worst.
Lions fans can take solace in the fact Goff won’t be the starting quarterback a second longer than he has to be. But for the rest of this season, barring significant injury, Goff will not be replaced as the starter. That doesn’t mean David Blough or Tim Boyle won’t see action, just that they won’t start unless Goff is literally not able to play.
Jared Goff is in a category of bad all his own this season
Statistics can be shaped to fit a narrative, with “ifs”, “buts” and other justifications for someone’s struggles. On that note, Goff hasn’t gotten the kind of help he clearly needs to succeed. But according to one metric, he’s in a category all his own entering Week 10 (a huge h/t to Jeff Risdon of Lions Wire).
According to rbdsm, filtering out garbage time (narrowing win probability to the 10-90 percent range), with a minimum play count of 200, and with EPA (Expected Points Added) per play and CPOE (Completion Percentage Above Expected) as the axises, here are the takeaways.
Goff is a little above average in CPOE, and actuallly slightly better than Matthew Stafford. But he’s clearly the worst in the league (26th of 26 qualifying quarterbacks) with a -0.157 EPA (-0.199 unadjusted EPA), with Sam Darnold the next worst with a -0.012 EPA (Darnold is only other quarterback who fits the minimum play threshold with a EPAs).
According to rbdsm’s data, with the same filters, Goff is No. 1 in expected completion percentage through Week 9 (71.4 percent). He’s one of two quarterbacks above 70 percent in that metric (Kirk Cousins is the other, and Darnold comes in third at 68.8 percent).
Goff has been frustratingly bad more often than not this season, and as a whole the data backs it up. But it’s also not surprising, since he’s a limited quarterback who’s now on a team that can’t mask his flaws.
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