Cal Sports Report

Jared Goff Stays Unbeaten in NFL Games Against Patrick Mahomes

Former Cal QB Goff helps the Lions upset the Chiefs in Kansas City in the NFL opener

Jake Curtis

There will be talk about the absence of Travis Kelce, or the dropped passes by the Chiefs, or the deflected pass that resulted in a Detroit touchdown.

But the bottom line is that a team quarterbacked by former Cal star Jared Goff won on the road against the defending Super Bowl champions quarterbacked by the 2022 MVP.

Goff's string of success dating back to the second half of last year continued in the very first game of the 2023 NFL season when his Detroit Lions upset the Kansas City Chiefs 21-20 Thursday night.

No one is going to claim Goff is better than Patrick Mahomes, but Goff is now 2-0 in games against Mahomes. In 2018, when he was with the Rams, Goff beat Mahomes and the Chiefs 54-51 in their only other head-to-head meeting.

Goff had better number than Patrick Mahomes, the two-time MVP.  Despite throwing incompletion on first three passes of the game, Goff finished 22-of-35 for 253 yards, one touchdown, no interceptions and a passer rating of 94.1.  Mahomes was 21-of-39 for 226 yards, two touchdowns, one interception and a passer rating of 77.5.

And if we go back to the second half of last season, Goff's numbers are every bit as good as Mahomes.

Over the final nine games last season plus Thursday's opener, Goff has thrown 16 touchdown passes and zero interceptions.  The Lions are 8-2 in those 10 games.

Goff has thrown 359 consecutive passes without an interception, the third-longest streak in in NFL history.

And Thursday's win indicated that the 2022 late-season surges by Detroit and Goff were not flukes.

After throwing incompletions in his first three passes, Goff completed his next 11 pass attempts in a row.

Aided by a gutsy fake punt that resulted in a first down deep in Detroit territory, Goff led the Lions to the first score of the game.  It came on Goff's touchdown pass to Amon-Ra St. Brown.

After Kansas City tied the score, Goff led another prolonged drive that seemed destined for points before former Cal receiver Marvin Jones Jr. fumbled the ball away at the Kansas City 7-yard line.

It was not a good day for Jones in his return to Detroit after playing the past two seasons in Jacksonville. Jones was in the starting lineup for the Lions and  was targeted six times but had only two receptions for 8 yards, and the fumble. 

Ultimately it did not matter.

Cover photo of Jared Goff by Denny Medley, USA TODAY Sports

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Jake Curtis
JAKE CURTIS

Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.

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