'It's Not about the Money': Goff Reacts to Ben Johnson's Return

Jared Goff and Ben Johnson have been a match made in football heaven.

Jared Goff, NFC Championship Game / Junfu Han, USA TODAY NETWORK

Detroit Lions signal-caller Jared Goff and offensive coordinator Ben Johnson have been a match made in football heaven since Johnson was promoted to offensive coordinator for the 2022 season.  

Since then, Goff, who was given up on by the L.A. Rams, has experienced a career resurgence. 

Over the last two seasons, the 2016 No. 1 overall pick has thrown for 59 touchdowns and 9,013 yards, while completing 66.2 percent of his passes. He’s also been selected to a Pro Bowl, and has led the Lions to a 21-13 record, including the franchise’s first division championship in 30 years. 

Along the way, he’s developed a strong rapport with Johnson, which certainly has played a part in Goff validating his status as Detroit’s franchise quarterback of today and the future.

For a second straight offseason, Goff and the Lions almost lost their star offensive play-caller, though. Johnson, who is currently viewed as one of the best offensive minds in today’s game, was courted by several teams with head coaching vacancies. Yet, the highly-coveted coordinator decided to return to the Motor City to take another stab at making a Super Bowl run with Goff and his teammates. 

“He (Johnson) had plenty of opportunities to leave, and for two years, he really did and could’ve left,” Goff told Robbie and Will McInerny on the latest episode of Willbo’s “Trading Cards” podcast. “For him, we’re lucky; it’s not about the money for him. He loves coaching. He loves being around us. He’s a very rare type of person that way. I’m very thankful for him.”

Lions are not a ‘fluke’

Detroit recorded a banner campaign in 2023, advancing to the NFC Championship Game for the first time in 32 years.

Leading into that NFC title game against the NFC West champion San Francisco 49ers, though, the talk from a variety of both local and national pundits was that the 49ers were loaded with talent and belonged. Meanwhile, the Lions were equipped with a solid roster and had put together a season to remember. Yet, the belief from such individuals in the media was that Dan Campbell’s squad had overachieved a bit – or a lot, depending on who you were asking – by making it all the way to the championship round of the NFC playoffs. 

That didn’t sit very well with Goff, especially when he heard the same narrative expressed by a Lions beat reporter prior to Detroit’s clash with the 49ers. 

“You know, that’s our own beat reporter that’s been with us for three years. You haven’t been in San Francisco. You know what our team looks like. Why do we have to talk about how good their players are? Talk about how good our players are. That’s how I felt,” Goff said. “Are we like privileged to play this game, because they have a bunch of good players? Is that what you’re saying? (Amon-Ra) St. Brown was first-team All-Pro, Penei Sewell’s first-team All-Pro, (we have) Frank Ragnow, Sam LaPorta. Like, do you want me to keep going? I know they have a lot of good players, so do we. I know they’re really good, (and) so are we.”

Goff is fed up with the Lions being labeled as “the underdog.” And, this upcoming season, he’s out to prove (once again) that he and his teammates belong on the same playing field as San Francisco and the rest of the NFL’s elite teams. 

“I know they (the 49ers) have good players. I know they’ve got the Defensive Player of the Year in Nick Bosa and the whole thing. But, look at our roster. We’ve all got good players. And I guess, the point was like, ‘We’re here to stay. This isn’t like some fluke season, where we just caught lightning in a bottle. No, we’ve got good players on our team, we’ve got good coaches on our team.”

'No easy path' to reaching greatness

Goff has reached a Super Bowl once before (during the 2018 season with the Rams). He’d like to do so again with the Lions, plus win this time around. 

The veteran passer understands there are no shortcuts to reaching the pinnacle of success in the NFL and that there will be rough patches along the way. He experienced just that after joining the Lions and going through a 3-13-1 season in 2021. 

This vital lesson about going through tough times is one he gleaned from reading the book, “The Obstacle is the Way,” in the summer following his trade from Los Angeles to Detroit. 

“The obstacle of, you want your team to be great, you want to be great. In my instance, I want to win a Super Bowl, I want to get us past this ground floor to a grander state as a team. How do you get there? Right through the middle,” Goff said. “There’s only one way to go. There’s no easy path. There’s no magic pill. There’s no, ‘Hey, maybe we can cut the corner here.’ No, it’s you’ve got to go right through the hard stuff, you’ve got to go right into it headfirst and you’ve got to go through it every single day and find a way to show up every day.”