The Detroit Lions 2024 schedule came out on Wednesday. Anomalies exist with any schedule, and one particular random occurrence looks favorable for the Lions.
In what is probably the most impactful schedule note: #Lions QB Jared Goff won't play outside of a dome until Week 9 in Lambeau. The #Lions will only play 3 games outdoors in the regular season (GB, CHI, SF).
— uSTADIUM (@uSTADIUM) May 16, 2024
Goff’s stats in 2023:
DOME - 14 games:
11-3, 69.8%, 277 ypg, 28 TDs,… pic.twitter.com/N977Rtmch3
Indoors, Goff was one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL last season. Outdoors, when weather obviously can come into play, he is markedly worse. And it's not a one-year thing, spanning Goff's entire career.
"Jared Goff is an indoor cat." - @adamrank https://t.co/DO4xLdqXuJ
— Marcas Grant (@MarcasG) May 16, 2024
The Lions will play three of their first four games at home this season. Road games at Arizona, at Dallas and at Minnesota are all indoors of course. Week 9 at Green Bay, on Nov. 3, is unlikely to bring particularly rough weather. But it will be the first outdoor game of the season-the Lions' eighth game. It's fair to assume no other team in the league will go almost half the season before playing an outdoor game.
This little scheduling quirk may be very noteworthy to the NFC race when all is said and done.
Random scheduling advantage stands to be big for Jared Goff and the Lions
It's great news for the Lions that Goff gets to play the majority of his games indoors this season. As the stats show, he is a different quarterback outdoors.
The more wins the Lions can snag early, the better their chances of building a big enough cushion to win the division as well as challenge for the top seed in the NFC again. If the Lions have home field advantage throughout the playoffs, the league now knows how dangerous they can be.
Detroit just rewarded Goff with a huge contract extension, and their home stadium being a dome stands as a big reason why they made that commitment. For his career, he has a better completion percentage (67.5 percent to 62.4 percent outdoors), QBR (99.3 to 89.5) indoors with 24 interceptions (52 career interceptions outdoors). He's also been sacked 69 times indoors compared with 134 outdoors.
Goff's comfort indoors could be a real springboard for the Lions this season. Super Bowl LIX will be held in New Orleans at the Superdome, where Goff is 3-2 in his career with 11 touchdown passes.