Once again, the Detroit Lions look to have a strong shot at getting to the Super Bowl and winning their first Vince Lombardi Trophy. They have gotten out to a 4-1 record despite injuries to key players such as cornerback D.J. Reed, and with a big contest against the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday, they will also be without cornerback Terrion Arnold.
While their defense has had some issues, they have the NFL’s top scoring offense. Quarterback Jared Goff is playing outstanding football, and he currently leads everyone with 12 passing touchdowns and a 75.2% pass completion rate, to go along with 1,187 passing yards. He may not be the current favorite to win the MVP award, but one can say he’s playing about as well as he ever has.
Sports personality Colin Cowherd made a bold statement about Goff when he said that the 30-year-old has already earned his way to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
"If you look at Jared Goff, he has eight great years," Cowherd said on “The Volume” podcast. "Jared's a Hall of Famer. He's made no enemies. Even [Sean] McVay feels guilty for letting him go."
Cowherd’s partner on “The Volume” podcast, Danny Parkins, partly disagreed with Cowherd’s assessment and said Goff will need to win a world championship in order to get into Canton.
Goff started his career in 2016 as a member of the Los Angeles Rams. A year later, McVay became their head coach, and Goff instantly made back-to-back Pro Bowls while taking L.A. to the Super Bowl during the 2018 season.
The team lost in that Super Bowl to Tom Brady’s New England Patriots, however, when Goff went 19 of 38 and had zero touchdown passes and one interception. That seemed to be the genesis of the nagging narrative that he doesn’t do well in big games, especially in cold-weather conditions at open-air stadiums.
Last season in the divisional round of the playoffs against the Washington Commanders, Goff completed only 23 of 40 pass attempts and threw three interceptions, leading to a 45-31 Lions loss. The previous year, he was 25 of 41 in Detroit’s loss to the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship Game.
Since getting traded to the Lions prior to the 2021 season, Goff has stepped up his level of play. He has thrown for over 4,400 yards in each of the last three seasons, and in 2024, he ranked second with 4629 yards and fourth with 37 passing touchdowns.
Goff will have the opportunity to make a major statement on Sunday against Patrick Mahomes and crew. The following week, Detroit will then host the surging Tampa Bay Buccaneers on “Monday Night Football” before it has its bye.
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