Goff: Loss to 49ers Gave Lions 'Ton of Fire'

The Lions' devastating defeat to the 49ers is still fresh on the mind of Jared Goff.

Jared Goff / Kelley L Cox, USA TODAY Sports

Nearly three full months have passed since the Detroit Lions’ loss to the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship Game. 

Yet, the devastating defeat, which involved Detroit squandering a 24-7 halftime lead, still is fresh on the minds of Jared Goff and the Lions.

Detroit endured a series of unfortunate events during the infamous second half, and proceeded to be outscored by Kyle Shanahan's 49ers, 27-7, in the final half of play. It culminated in an epic collapse by Goff & Co., which prevented the Lions from reaching their first Super Bowl in franchise history. 

“I don’t know, it seems a lot of things just didn’t go our way. I hate for that to sound like an excuse, because we feel like we should’ve won that game anyway. The second half, they played well, and we didn’t,” Goff said Tuesday of the Lions’ loss to the 49ers, on Day 2 of the team's offseason program. “That’s kind of the bottom line. I wish I could go back and pinpoint some plays for you, but there was a lot of them. There wasn’t just one. There wasn’t just one thing that went wrong. There was a handful of them, and that’s the way the ball bounced that day.” 

For the Detroit veteran signal-caller, the loss has become an extra source of motivation headed into the 2024 campaign.

“But, it gave us a ton of fire,” Goff commented further. “I know Dan’s talked about it. It gave us a ton of fire, and gives us something to look at and draw on for next year.”

The reigning NFC North champion Lions, after finishing the 2023 campaign just one win shy of the Super Bowl, will enter the upcoming season with plenty of expectations. And undeniably, the organization will head into the 2024 season with more expectations than it did a season ago. 

Goff is readily cognizant of that reality, and has one goal in mind: to hoist the Lombardi Trophy at season's end. 

“I think we got a chance to kind of taste it last year. So, you get to see what it feels like. This year, it’s absolutely the goal,” Goff said of winning the Super Bowl. “Obviously, the expectations and our standards will rise, and the outside expectations will rise and the outside standards will rise. But internally, we’re gonna do the same thing we’ve been doing, and try to raise our internal expectations and standards.” 

Detroit is now the “hunted,” instead of the “hunter.” It'll make repeating as division champs and making another deep run through the NFC playoffs that much harder to achieve. 

“I think Dan put it great (in his press conference after the Lions’ loss to San Francisco), how much harder it’s gonna be. We know that,“ Goff said. “It’s gonna be harder, people are gonna be gunning for us. You know, it’s gonna be harder for us to defend our division title. That’s number one, and then see where we can go from there. But absolutely, holding that trophy at the end of the year, only one team gets to do it. And, that’s our goal.”