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Walking into their matchup against the Philadelphia Eagles, the Detroit Lions were hoping to take advantage of a team that has come under fire as of late. In Philadelphia, the heat will cool a little after the Eagles whooped the Lions in a 44-6 convincing victory.
Many issues led the Lions to their worst performance of the season, from their pitiful line play to inexcusable mental errors from players and coaches. However, there is one player that has lost the patience of many, especially after yet another disturbing showing.
Jared Goff has found himself at the forefront of another heavily ridiculed performance, especially after the same mistakes keep rearing their ugly head. Between the constant deep dropbacks and lack of awareness and response to pressure that led to the four sacks he endured today, Dan Campbell felt Goff could be held accountable as much as the offensive line.
“To me, here’s what a lot of that is—he’s (Jared Goff) trying to make a play,” Campbell said after the game. “He’s trying to hold it a little longer, he’s trying to—when you start getting down like that or you’re lacking production.”
The problem is that Goff continues to stare down his reads, and the simplicity of the current offense is making it quite easy for the team to scheme around, giving him very little room for error to sustain drives. The unfortunate part is not a matter of “if”; it is about when surrounding Goff’s mistakes, especially when he made the same mistake last week.
Against the Rams, Goff threw the ball away on fourth down thinking there was a holding call against them, so he thought, no harm, let me throw away the ball and live to try again or punt it away. But, unfortunately, he failed to remember that teams can decline a penalty, which the Rams did. So instead of trying to make the play, he handed over the ball to the Rams.
He did not learn from the error and decided to double down and look to have thrown the ball away again on a fourth-down attempt, opening the floodgates to some very heavy booing from every corner of the earth.
When asked about the throw, Goff seemed to bring into question some of his mental lapses and some of his physical incapabilities.
“That was a misfire,” Goff explained in his postgame press conference. “I was not trying to throw that ball away. That ball came out high. I knew what the situation was and that was a mistake physically, not mentally. I explained the first one, though. I thought there was a holding call.”
But that was a heavy misfire because that ball was not even close to the intended target. If the cameraman was the intended target, he nailed it because that was the only one who could’ve caught that ball.
Jared Goff with a throwaway on 4th down 🤦🏼♂️ pic.twitter.com/cU0mFnWdtC
— Shane Haff (@HAFFnHAFF_TPL) October 31, 2021
When asked about the offensive performance, Dan Campbell was also not happy with the lack of execution of that fourth-down call.
“Aside from the fact that on the fourth down, he threw it into the stands, which yeah, that’s not a good decision.”
The Lions have their bye week coming up, and you can bet they will take a long hard look at the film to figure out what exactly happened that led to this atrocious performance. First and foremost, it starts with Goff’s mental and physical issues that have caused this offense to stay neutral or some points heading into reverse.
Surely, the Lions braintrust of Dan Campbell, Anthony Lynn, and Mark Burnell will hopefully try to bridge some of those lapses Goff is experiencing. But you can believe they have not lost the trust of the signal-caller. It may be hard to wrap your head around that, but they are invested in him for better or for worse.
At this point, confidence is wearing thin among many fans surrounding the organization, and you can bet they want that win just as much as everyone else. Goff assured many the confidence is still there even with the team’s slow start, but at the same time, there needs to be massive jumps and improvement from Goff to get the offense driving.
“I don’t. I don’t. I really don’t and I think that’s been kind of the theme of the whole year is, as bad as it’s been, the efforts there. We’ve got young guys who are fighting. We’ve got veteran guys who are fighting and we love each other,” Goff stated.