Jared Goff- From Number 1 NFL Draft Pick to Franchise Savior
We all know that being the No.1 Draft pick does not guarantee success in football. Whether it’s through injuries or failure to adapt to the big leagues or some other curveball that a sports career can throw at you, it is familiar enough for it to fail.
Yet, even when it leads to a successful career, it’s rarely plain sailing.
If we could take you back to 2017 and January, when you get floods of articles offering an autopsy on teams’ seasons, can you remember what they were saying about Jared Goff? The No.1 pick had landed with the Rams, and he had a turgid first campaign. A “nightmare,” some publications called it for the rookie, adding that he was a “scrub.”
Of course, it’s common knowledge that Goff has since mocked those knee-jerk reactions. He is a four-time Pro Bowler, made it to the Super Bowl with the Rams, and is currently the leading man for a Detroit Lions team that is the betting favorite in the Super Bowl odds for this campaign.
Goff has helped transform the Lions into the NFL’s best.
Goff is having one of his best-ever seasons. And while he has been slightly overshadowed by the likes of Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson in the league’s MVP conversation, he has been the focal point of the offense of the most impressive team in the NFL. The Lions may or may not win Super Bowl LIX, but they’ve blown away the opposition thus far this season.
Despite that first season of woe with the Rams, Goff’s career didn’t follow an ‘up only’ trajectory thereafter. His performances in getting the Rams back into Playoff contention and leading them to Super Bowl LIII have been well-documented. But niggling injuries hampered him in his final season in LA. After that blockbuster trade to Detroit, things were the same in his first season. He’s not the perfect player but he feels like the right player at the right time for the Lions.
One thing we love about Goff’s time in Detroit is that the team has grown around him. Each season has felt like a step forward for Goff and his teammates. They have transformed from a 3-13-1 team in his first year in Detroit to a 15-2 team today. After four years of progression, each of the Lions’ fans has looked back and seen that their team has taken a step forward. In a sense, it should be viewed as a positive that they lost out to the 49ers in the NFC Championship game last season, as it allowed them to gain perspective – and experience – for this campaign.
This is the second chapter in Goff’s career.
In a sense, it feels like Goff has started his career over with the Lions. He already did the business with a struggling franchise in LA, and now he can do it again in Detroit. It is a second intriguing journey for the man who set a single-season Pac-12 record for passing yards and touchdowns. Of course, he has none of the rawness of his early days in LA, and he is – he admits himself – a different man in a Lions uniform. Yet, something is compelling about his mission to become a savior of two distinct franchises.
Goff’s career so far is both typical and atypical of No.1 Draft picks. As we hinted above, the sports media is sometimes too quick to hammer young rookies when they have not instantly met the expectations that their college careers have fostered. He shrugged off the criticisms of his early days with the Rams, and he has coped with the weight of expectation now that he is with a Lions team whose fanbase expects to win. It’s been fascinating to watch his NFL career unfold. It is even more interesting to wonder what will come next.