Pro Football Network Ranks Jared Goff as Bottom-Tier QB
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Jared Goff enters the 2022 season firmly entrenched as the Detroit Lions' starting quarterback.
With Tim Boyle and David Blough as his backups for a second straight campaign, Goff doesn't face serious competition for the job.
Goff is coming off a season in which he threw for both the 20th-most touchdowns (19) and the 20th-most passing yards (3,245). He also recorded the 16th-most passing yards per game (231.8), to go along with the ninth-lowest QBR among qualified passers (39.5).
It was a year of ups and downs for the former L.A. Rams signal-caller.
He threw for just one touchdown, as opposed to four interceptions, in a span of five games in 2021, which lasted from Week 5 to Week 10.
But, then in his last five games of the season, the 27-year-old looked like a different quarterback. He completed nearly 70 percent of his passes (69.57 percent), and produced 11 passing touchdowns and just two interceptions.
During this stretch of games, he also helped lead the Lions to all three of their victories during the '21 campaign.
It's given the franchise and its fanbase some newfound confidence regarding the former No. 1 overall pick headed into his second season in the Motor City.
Junfu Han, USA TODAY NETWORK
"We feel good about Jared, the way that he finished the year, with all the adversity that he faced last year, the way he finished,” Detroit general manager Brad Holmes told Rich Eisen on the "Rich Eisen Show" last week. “And, Dan (Campbell) and I just want to make sure he’s set up for success. We’re still going to put in efforts to do that going forward. And, Jared knows it’s, every year he’s got to come out here, compete and prove that he’s the guy. But, thus far this offseason, he’s done that.”
Yet, not everyone is as high on Goff as the Lions' front-office brass.
Pro Football Network's Dalton Miller recently ranked Detroit's starting signal-caller as the No. 29 QB headed into the 2022 season. The only quarterbacks ranked below him: the Carolina Panthers' Sam Darnold (No. 30), the Pittsburgh Steelers' Mitchell Trubisky (No. 31) and the Seattle Seahawks' Drew Lock (No. 32).
Miller has the Kansas City Chiefs' Patrick Mahomes (No. 1), the Buffalo Bills' Josh Allen (No. 2) and the Green Bay Packers' Aaron Rodgers (No. 3) ranked as his top three passers going into the upcoming season.
It's fair to say that Goff, at least according to Miller, needs to put together a full season of consistent production before he's able to move himself out of the bottom-tier of quarterbacks in the league. And, if he does, he might just be Detroit's starter under center once again in 2023.
