Jared Goff has occupied an interesting place in the league ever since his Detroit Lions made the leap into perennial playoff contention in 2023.
He’s put up eye-popping numbers (no quarterback in the league has thrown more touchdowns since 2023) and won plenty of games. But the conversation about Goff always seems to steer more towards the players and system around him, no matter how many times his play-caller changes or his offensive line shuffles around.
And at least one NFL analyst seems to think the 31 year-old Goff has already peaked.
CBS Sports’ Bryan DeArdo published an article Tuesday ranking every NFL starting quarterback into six tiers. He placed Goff in tier 2, dubbed “Borderline Stars”.
Goff is grouped alongside Jalen Hurts, Sam Darnold, Caleb Williams, Bo Nix, Jayden Daniels, Brock Purdy, Jordan Love, Dak Prescott, Drake Maye, Justin Herbert and Trevor Lawrence.
DeArdo wrote:
""Goff appears to have reached his career arc unless the Lions make another deep playoff run. A former No. 1 overall pick, Goff has enjoyed a highly productive career that includes a Super Bowl appearance with the Rams, five Pro Bowl selections and leading Detroit to its first playoff wins since 1991. ""Bryan DeArdo, CBS Sports
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Assuming DeArdo means a word like “apex” or “peak” (because, sorry to be annoying but the phrase ‘reaching his arc’ doesn’t make much sense here), he seems to believe Goff’s best days are behind him.
The Lions reached the NFC title game in 2023 and lost to the San Francisco 49ers, and haven’t been back since. The NFC North is a tough division, former OC Ben Johnson is now coaching a division rival and salary cap woes have begun creeping in. All of this has made it a popular take that the Lions’ “Super Bowl window” is rapidly shrinking if not already closed.
And Goff himself tends to not be widely viewed as a quarterback who can elevate the team around him and make a play out of structure when it’s needed most. The quarterbacks in DeArdo’s tier 1 (Matthew Stafford, Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson and Joe Burrow) are the players viewed in that vein.
Fair enough. With the exception of Stafford, each of those quarterbacks possesses athleticism and on-the-fly playmaking chops that Goff has never had. And Stafford just won MVP, so there’s that.
But Goff does not get enough credit for what he did in 2025. He had an offensive line that went from one of the league’s best to one of its worst in one offseason thanks to Frank Ragnow’s June retirement and a plethora of injuries. The running game was inefficient and had the ninth worst success rate in the NFL, per SumerSports.
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Goff was sacked more times than any other year of his career. Despite this, he has the NFL’s ninth-best passer rating under pressure, also per SumerSports. Not bad for a guy who is viewed as a statue that can’t move.
He is one of the league’s most accurate passers, one of its smartest before the snap and you’d be hard-pressed to find a quarterback who can punish teams more with play-action when the run game is going.
Not to mention, the Lions replaced play-caller John Morton midseason, to give Goff the fourth different OC of his five years in Detroit. Through all of this chaos, the Lions still finished top 5 in both yards and points per game.
Goff’s play is the biggest reason for that. And he doesn’t get the credit he deserves for it.
DeArdo’s tier list has all sorts of things that this writer disagrees with. Chief among them is having Goff in the same tier as other quarterbacks whose success has historically been so tied to their play-caller and situation, like Hurts, Purdy and Nix.
He’s proven to be a much more transformative and impactful player than the popular perception has him as. If the Lions’ offensive line and playcalling is more steady in 2026, the results will speak for themselves. But even then, Goff will probably be written off again as a product of his situation.
A closer look begs to differ.
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