Lions comfortable letting Tim Boyle and David Blough battle for backup job

Not that they have a choice, but the Detroit Lions are comfortable letting Tim Boyle and David Blough battle to be Jared Goff’s immediate backup.

Jared Goff was begging to be benched during a particular bad stretch in the early part of last season, but the Detroit Lions had no one they were comfortable replacing him with. Ultimately was injuries and COVID cost Goff three games, and Tim Boyle made three starts.

During OTAS, David Blough has seemingly moved ahead of Boyle in the battle to be the Lions’ No. 2 quarterback. The battle will continue during training camp.

Boyle and Blough were both re-signed this offseason, though it would have been easy for the Lions to replace one or both. And it wouldn’t have required adding someone to compete with Goff for the starting job, or overtake him. Just a better backup would’ve sufficed. A rookie, even an undrafted guy, might have been interesting–and certainly more interesting than Boyle and Blough.

Blough started five games for the Lions when Matthew Stafford was injured in 2019. He and Boyle are a combined 0-8 as NFL starters.

Lions are confident in Tim Boyle and David Blough as they battle to be QB2

It’s not quite on the level of what Tom Moore once said about Peyton Manning in Indianapolis years ago if Goff misses time for the Lions. But winning any game Goff misses will be hard. If Boyle was even marginally better in two of his three starts last season, the Lions could have won those games.

Barring a surprise cut that offers a different/better option, the Lions are stuck with who they have behind Goff. Quarterbacks coach Mark Brunell, via Tim Twentyman of the team website, has no choice but to embrace the competition between Boyle and Blough.

"That’s why David and Tim are here,” Brunell said. “We have confidence in them. You don’t just bring guys back to bring them back because they were here last year. You bring them back because you feel they have the ability to be solid backups. We have a lot of confidence."

In the span of about 50 words (rough count), Brunell used the word “confidence” regarding Boyle and Blough as Goff’s backups twice. Almost as if he’s trying to talk himself into it. He knows he can’t say anything else.

Boyle and Blough are the only options behind Goff, though it would behoove general manager Brad Holmes to stay open to adding someone another team cuts if there’s a viable option. Said new addition would have to get up to workable speed with a new offense on short notice, but the  automatic upgrade would be worth that bit of hassle for Detroit.