Cal Sports Report

Lions' Jared Goff Should Be NFL Comeback Player of the Year

Former Cal quarterback is not getting the attention Geno Smith is, but don’t you have to come back from something to win that award?

Jake Curtis

Former Cal quarterback Jared Goff is not among the favorites to win the NFL Comeback Player of the Year Award, but he should be. In fact, he should be the frontrunner.

At the moment Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith is a heavy favorite to win that award at virtually every betting site. And he is having an outstanding season, leading Seattle to a 7-6 record and ranking third in the NFL in passer rating.

But don’t you have to come back from something to be considered the Comeback Player of the Year.

It would be fair to say Smith is “emerging” as a standout quarterback, but it seems to me you have to have established yourself as a star, then take a woeful downturn either because of injury or performance, before returning to an elite level to have a comeback.

Smith’s best year before this season was his rookie year of 2013, when he started 16 games for the Jets and went 8-8, including two meaningless wins to finish the season. His passer rating that season was a woeful 66.5. And that, folks, was his best season in terms of team success.  He's never been to a Pro Bowl.

So, tell me, what is he coming back from? Smith should win an award for perseverance, but not Comeback Player of the Year.

Now let’s look at Goff.

He was outstanding in his second and third NFL seasons, getting to the Pro Bowl both years. He took the Rams to the Super Bowl in the 2018 season when he had a passer rating of 101.1 and was a strong MVP candidate midway through that season.

Then his reputation slowly slid into the gutter. He was the scapegoat for the Rams’ decline in 2020, and he was replaced as the starter in the Rams’ first playoff game that season by John Wolford. Yes, John Wolford. That’s a pretty steep drop.

Rams coach Sean McVay wanted to unload Goff so badly that the Rams gave Detroit first-round draft picks in both 2022 and 2023 as well as a compensatory third-round pick as well as agreeing to pay Goff’s $2.5 million bonus just to give Goff away to the Lions to get Matthew Stafford, who is a gifted quarterback to be sure but had been selected to just one Pro Bowl.

Folks in Detroit did not think Goff was the answer for the Lions, calling him a one-year place-holder until the Lions could acquire a real starting quarterback in the draft or through free agency or a trade. It was a mild surprise when Lions officials said they were going to stick with Goff as their starter in 2022 after a 3-13-1 seaon in 2021.

And the naysayers came out in full force when the Lions started this season 1-6.

But suddenly the Lions began to win games, thanks in large part to Goff’s performance. They have won five of their last six games, the only loss in that stretch being a three-point loss to Buffalo when the Bills kicked the game-winning field goal with two seconds left and the end of a 48-yard drive that began with 23 seconds remaining.

Goff has been outstanding lately. Over the past five games, he has thrown eight touchdown passes with no interceptions, and he had perhaps his best game on Sunday when the Lions handed Minnesota just its third loss of the season. He was 27-for-39 for 330 yards, three touchdowns, no interceptions and a 120.7 passer rating. Goff now ranks seventh in the NFL in passer rating for the season, ahead of Josh Allen, Justin Herbert, Aaron Rodgers and Dak Prescott, to name just a few.

And the Lions are now in contention for a playoff berth, which seemed impossible when they were 1-6. It also seemed impossible when the Lions acquired Goff.

That, my friends, is a comeback.

Perhaps most interesting was a comment by Jason Garrett during the Sunday Night Football telecast when he said the Lions now may have the best vertical passing game in the NFL. I remember just a few years ago Goff came under severe criticism because he didn’t, or couldn’t, throw the deep ball, opting to check down instead.

How’s this for a vertical threat:

ESPN analyst and former NFL quarterback Dan Orlovsky is the first person I’ve heard to say Goff deserves to be in the conversation from Comeback Player of the Year. He also said the Lions are the third-most dangerous team in the NFC.

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Goff was clearly upbeat in his postgame press conference Sunday. He even said it was nice to have people have to “eat their words” after the slow start. He later said he was half-kidding about that comment – emphasis on “half.”

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He had said earlier in the week he thought he was playing the best football of his career, and Sunday's performance may have confirmed it.

Lions head coach Dan Campbell said Sunday that Goff is the "direct link" as to why the Lions are on this run, and on Monday Campbell said, "He's had to overcome a lot and he's at a good place right now."

The good place is Detroit. In Los Angeles he was replaced by John Wolford as the starter in a playoff game.

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Cover photo of Jared Goff by Kirthmon F. Dozier, USA TODAY Network

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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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