Thursday’s Lions-Bills game was won and lost based on plays the quarterbacks did and didn’t make late, and a Heisman-winning quarterback turned analyst is the latest to perfectly sum up Jared Goff.
For most of Thanksgiving Day game against the Buffalo Bills, the Detroit Lions did a lot of what they needed to in order to pull an upset if you were assessing before the game. Long offensive drives that yielded points, with Jared Goff making plenty of on-point throws. A takeaway by the defense. Some pressure on Josh Allen.
It wasn’t perfect, but a late fourth quarter lead came anyway.
Much can be made of the clock and timeout management on the Lions’ final offensive drive. The play-call on 3rd-and-1, a downfield shot Goff and DJ Chark couldn’t connect on, was and is a talking point.
ESPN NFL and college football analyst Robert Griffin III pointed to late-game management by the Lions.
The Lions completely mismanaged the end of the game scenarios from timeout usage to play calls. Frustrating because they are SOOO much better than their 4-7 record. Have lost five 1 score games this year. Sorry Lions fans.
— Robert Griffin III (@RGIII) November 24, 2022
Playing close games lends itself to scrutiny on every little decision, missed play and missed opportunity when things don’t work out. Given the alternative, getting blown out by the Bills, Lions’ fans can be dissapointed in but optimistic about Thursday’s result in the bigger picture.
Robert Griffin III perfectly sums up Jared Goff
Goff took a bad sack for a safety, Michael Badgley missed a 29-yard field and a Jamaal Williams fumble set the Bills up on a shorter field for what ended up as their second touchdown drive of the game. But the Lions still had a chance to pull the upset, until….
Griffin summed it up perfectly in another tweet.
That’s the difference between Josh Allen and Jared Goff in a nutshell. When the Lions needed a big throw Goff missed it. When the Bills needed a big throw, Josh Allen made it.
— Robert Griffin III (@RGIII) November 24, 2022
It’s clear Goff and Chark weren’t quite on the same page on the fateful 3rd-and-1 play. But Goff acknowledged he didn’t make a good throw, and he has missed multiple similar throws this season (and he has surely similarly missed those kind of throws on a regular basis throughout his career, upon deeper examination).
ESPN’s Bill Barnwell posted the “dots” for the Goff-Chark missed connection.
Lions should have the lead. pic.twitter.com/aY0XpuZRnJ
— Bill Barnwell (@billbarnwell) November 24, 2022
The Bills have a quarterback who’s physically able to make a critical throw in a key moment, not to mention anything intangible that allowed him to rise to the occasion. The Lions quarterback flat-out missed his critical throw in a big moment, and didn’t even think about any other options (see the #11 dot above, Kalif Raymond, for one). But that is just who Goff is, and thus it shouldn’t have been surprising to watch the throw tumble to the ground well short of Chark. RGIII just took an opportunity to point out the difference, and he was spot-on in the quarterback comparison that ultimately determined Thursday’s outcome.