Detroit Lions fans are all too well-acquainted with horrible Sundays, but this one might be the worst. This was the year. This was the team. This is how they’ll spend Sunday: wondering how the best team in modern franchise history failed to win a single playoff game, while Matthew Stafford plays for his second trip to the NFC championship game since he left.
Commanders 45, Lions 31 will leave a mark: On the fan base, on the team, on coach Dan Campbell and especially on quarterback Jared Goff, who needed to be great and wasn’t even good. Last week, a Detroit crowd chanted “Ja–red Goff!” when he showed up to a Pistons game. Saturday night, Goff lost a fumble, threw three interceptions, overthrew Jameson Williams on a deep ball and delivered this assessment afterward:
“Had I played better, do we win? Possibly. And that’s the part that will eat me alive all offseason.”
Goff is resilient. He is eminently likeable. In his press conference, he skillfully straddled the line between crediting the Washington Commanders and blaming himself.
He is also a very good quarterback. But he is not on the same level as the truly great ones, for reasons that were quite obvious Saturday night.
Late in the first half, Goff had Williams open in the end zone, and it was a throw that Patrick Mahomes or Josh Allen or, yes, Stafford would all probably complete, because they all throw harder than Goff. Goff’s throw was late enough for Washington’s Mike Sainristil to step in front of it for an interception.
Washington’s Jayden Daniels would probably make that throw, too. Daniels, by the way, ran for 51 yards Saturday. Goff ran for 56 yards all season.
If Goff had played better, do the Lions win? Possibly is the correct answer. Washington is a good team. Daniels is a superstar. And the Lions beat themselves in all sorts of ways.
Consecutive drives began with a skill-position player committing a false start. Defensive end Josh Paschal leveled Daniels when he no longer had the ball; Paschal was flagged for a personal foul. Early in the fourth quarter, with the Commanders facing fourth-and-2 on the Lions’ 5-yard line, Lions linebacker Ben Niemann ran onto the field and called for someone to come off. Nobody did. Twelve men on the field. First down. Two plays later, Brian Robinson Jr. scored to give Washington a two-score lead.
On the Lions’ next drive, which was at least adjacent to must-score territory, offensive coordinator Ben Johnson called for receiver Jameson Williams to throw a pass to Jahmyr Gibbs. The Lions botched it in two ways: They had an ineligible receiver downfield, and Williams threw into coverage and got picked off, another by Sainristil. Players make mistakes, but when a team practices a play like that, two points of emphasis are A) It’s a slow-developing play, so if you’re not eligible, don’t drift downfield; and B) if the intended receiver is not wide open, throw it away.
Nothing in those last two paragraphs can be blamed on injuries, and none of it can be pinned on Goff.
“I don’t know what it was,” Campbell said. “It just was one of those odd days. Things were a little bit off. At the end of the day, man, I didn’t have them ready.”
Campbell always assigns himself more blame than he deserves. It’s one reason players love him. But whether it was his fault or not, the Lions did not look ready for what hit them Saturday.
Maybe this is fair and maybe it’s not, but the Lions came into this game with an unbelievable level of swagger, and when they found themselves trailing the Commanders, they looked like they had lost it. The first-down celebrations were muted. The body language wasn’t great. Only they can say if they still believed; Goff said he did. But they sure didn’t play like they believed.
Campbell said as early as the first quarter, he was telling his players: “Don’t press, stay in the flow of the game, let the plays come to you.” It never stuck.
Also: Johnson is brilliant and Campbell has done a remarkable job, but Williams had never thrown a pass in the NFL or in college. He has turned into a really valuable player, but, well, let’s be honest here: If any Lions fan had to pick one guy on the roster to make a bad decision, Williams would have gotten the most votes. Campbell said, “I would have liked for him to run, but you know, listen: You take a risk and it didn’t work out.” O.K., fine. But the Lions were inviting disaster with that play call.
Margins for error are just not that big in the NFL playoffs. The Lions used up theirs, and it was thinner than their 15–2 record indicated.
The truth is that what happened to the Lions against Washington was probably going to happen eventually. Their defense was cooked. Starters Aidan Hutchinson, Alim McNeill, Carlton Davis and Derrick Barnes were already out with injuries, and against Washington, cornerback Amik Robertson and safety Ifeatu Melifonwu left with injuries. On one of the last meaningful plays of the game, Commanders tight end Zach Ertz caught a pass for a first down and cornerback Morice Norris tackled him. Norris did not have a single tackle all year. He barely played.
Campbell fought back tears in his press conference when he talked about his players’ commitment: “People don’t know what they go through … to get up … bodies beat to s--- …” It’s one reason players love him. He and a loaded young core will get the Lions back to the playoffs—probably in most seasons.
But a team that’s this beaten up only wins the Super Bowl if the quarterback plays like a superstar. Goff did not have it in him. The hard truth for the Lions is that he might never have it in him.
They can still win the Super Bowl with him. But they need to be healthier, stronger and more disciplined than they were against the Commanders.
“It sucks,” Goff said. “It’s the worst part of the job. You feel like you let guys down.”
It sucks for a lot of people, but Goff most of all. He is worth rooting for, even if he didn’t supply many reasons to do so on Saturday night.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Jared Goff, Lions Face Big Questions Following Stunning Upset vs. Commanders.