We think we know Jared Goff.
We know the calm eyes behind the facemask, the rhythm thrower who looks born for two-minute drives, the quarterback who walked into Detroit when the rest of the league wrote him off and somehow became the face of its renaissance.
But every so often, a story slips out that reshapes the picture: a story so unexpected, so oddly perfect, that it makes you rethink everything you assumed about a player.
That story surfaced this week, thanks to Eric Woodyard of ESPN, and it goes like this:
Jared Goff, before he was a No. 1 pick, before Pro Bowls, before Detroit, played high school basketball like a “poor man’s Dennis Rodman.”
Yes. That Rodman.
Jared Goff Dennis Rodman comparison
The Quarterback Who Did the Dirty Work
This isn’t a punchline tossed out by a buddy in a bar. This came straight from the people who know Goff best — childhood friends, former coaches, the guys who watched him grow from a lanky teenager into a franchise quarterback.
Cam Croteau, one of Goff’s closest friends since grade school, didn’t hesitate when Woodyard asked him to describe Goff on the basketball court.
“He was a ball hawk,” Croteau said. “A poor man’s Dennis Rodman.”
There is something beautiful about that.
Not polished.
Not flashy.
Not the star.
The worker.
In a sporting world obsessed with highlights, Goff’s basketball identity was born in the places people rarely celebrate: the box-outs, the loose balls, the elbows, the exhaustion.
He wasn’t scoring 25 a night. He was doing the grimy stuff.
Sound familiar, Detroit?
A Coach Saw It Before Anyone Else
Mike Saia, Goff’s varsity basketball coach at Marin Catholic, didn’t know what he had at first. Goff was slotted on JV, and nobody questioned it. He was tall, yes. He was athletic, sure. But he wasn’t exactly begging for attention.
Then Saia watched him play.
“Really, the only way offensively he was gonna touch the ball was to go get a rebound,” Saia told ESPN. “But to do the winning stuff and to do the dirty stuff — that’s where Jared got in and got some minutes.”
Winning stuff.
Dirty stuff.
Two phrases that could just as easily describe the version of Goff Lions fans have come to love.
Goff Didn’t Just Accept the Role — He Embraced It
Athletes, especially future professionals, often want to be scorers, stars, the ones who dictate the story. Goff? No. He leaned all the way into the Rodman comparison.
“I was not a scorer,” Goff admitted. “I was a hustle guy, 100 percent.”
It’s striking to hear a franchise quarterback, a player whose job is literally to command a game, talk so casually about being a role player. A glue guy. The seventh or eighth man.
But that mindset explains so much about the player he’s become in Detroit.
Quarterbacks with his résumé, former No. 1 pick, Super Bowl appearance, multiple Pro Bowls, often crumble when sent to a rebuilding team. They pout. They press. They burn out.
Goff adapted.
He rebuilt himself.
He found ways to help.
He did the dirty work.
Just like the kid grabbing rebounds in a California gym.
Jared Goff Keeps It Real
Everything About Detroit Makes Sense Now
The Lions needed a quarterback who could stabilize chaos.
They needed someone unselfish.
Someone resilient.
Someone who wasn’t afraid of a rebuild.
Someone who didn’t mind doing the gritty stuff that doesn’t get headlines.
Maybe they accidentally found the perfect man.
Maybe Brad Holmes knew.
Maybe Goff was always wired for Detroit.
How many superstar quarterbacks would be proud to say they played like Dennis Rodman?
How many would own it? Laugh about it? Reflect on it fondly?
Goff did.
And it fits, almost too well. Detroit doesn’t need flash. Detroit needs fighters. It needs grinders. It needs people who embrace the blue-collar heartbeat of the city even when nobody’s watching.
On the court, Goff fought for rebounds.
On the field, he fights for respect and wins.
Bottom Line
Jared Goff’s basketball past doesn’t change how we view him as a quarterback; it explains it. The toughness, the steadiness, the resilience, the competitive edge hidden beneath the calm exterior… it all traces back to a kid willing to be the Rodman of his eighth-grade team.
Detroit didn’t just get a quarterback.
They got a hustle player.
A glue guy.
A leader who lifts others.
And somehow, the Dennis Rodman story makes his entire Lions chapter make even more sense.