ALLEN PARK – Mel Kiper Jr. makes the Detroit Lions trade back in their last simulated draft. But even if Lions stay in the seventh overall choice, the ESPN draft analyst says the team would be wise to avoid taking a defender.
That’s how much he still believes in Jared Goff.
“I wouldn’t consider a quarterback if I were the Lion,” said Kiper during a phone call on Monday afternoon. “I think Jared Goff is a 26-year-old defender who has been to the Super Bowl, went to the races, was the number one choice in general, all of that. So I think now he has people who know him, he is familiar in terms of the front office. For me, you build around the quarterback. “
Lions are getting Goff and three choices for Matthew Stafford. The deal cannot be finalized until the start of the new league year on March 17, but the deal is in effect. Stafford requested the switch, and the Lions accommodated him by sending him to the Los Angeles Rams for a choice of the third round this year, a choice of the first round in 2022 and another choice of the first round in 2023.
This is a big payoff, partly due to Lions willingness to face Goff and that huge $ 134 million four-year contract that he signed in 2019. Goff was returning from consecutive Pro Bowl seasons at that time and led Los Angeles until the Super Bowl. But his performance plummeted the following season, and he was even worse last season. He has turned football 38 times in the past two seasons, a high in the league, while his aerial yards by attempt plummeted to the bottom of the league in 2020.
The Lions, however, launched a rebuild under new general manager Brad Holmes, who happened to be the scouting director of the Rams’ college when LA negotiated to win Goff for the first time in 2016. Lions hope that a change of scenery can bring about by Goff what happened to Ryan Tannehill, a former Miami bust who led one of the most effective NFL attacks in the past two seasons in Tennessee.
Kiper said it would be wise for Lions to try to save Goff’s career by using the seventh overall choice to build around him, instead of burning the selection in another quarterback, be it Justin Fields – his favorite non-quarterback prospect named Trevor Lawrence – – Zach Wilson, Trey Lance or some other QB prospect.
“That has been the problem with Matthew Stafford – he didn’t have enough talent around him,” said Kiper. “Defensively, they’ve always had problems. They tried to fix the offensive line, get the right running back, make the receivers stay healthy, they added the tight end. They never had everything working together. They would always have a strength in this or that group, but because of injuries and players who did not reach their potential, or whatever went wrong, they were never able to put it all together for Matthew Stafford. So, hopefully, with the new (regime) they can do that for Jared Goff.
“So, to answer your question, I think Jared Goff can be a good defender in this league. Can he be super elite? Well, there was a time when he was considered one of the brilliant young defenders and a really good defender with a chance to be great when he led the team to the Super Bowl. So, I think if he can recapture those moments and regain the confidence he had back then, which may have been lost a bit this year, I think Jared Goff is the right man for the job. “
The Lions are committed to Jared Goff in the short term, although his acquisition does not eliminate Detroit from considering a quarterback with the seventh overall choice, according to a source. And even if the club accepts a defender, Goff will still be on the team for at least a year – his contract guarantees that – and probably two.
Goff will almost certainly start, no matter what happens elsewhere in the position in 2021. The new Lions offensive coordinator, Anthony Lynn, prefers to come in as new quarterbacks, if possible, as he did when starting Tyrod Taylor over Justin Herbert while he was with the Chargers last season. But Taylor was injured early in the first month, Herbert joined the team and won the offensive rookie of the year.
“If (the newbie) wins the battle at camp, you will have to play against the best player,” said Lynn recently. “Otherwise, you’re going to have a mess in the locker room, if you don’t put the best people on the field. But I would love to see that newbie sit and watch for a while.
“If he could watch for half a season, or watch for the first year like Patrick Mahomes did, I think you can learn a lot from the right veteran defender because many rookies enter this league and are not ready. The speed of the game is twice as fast as in college. And if they don’t succeed in today’s environment, with social media, things get out of hand and some of these guys lose confidence and, hell, they never get it back. If I can sit as a newbie, I will. If I can.”