REVENGE OVER MCVAY COMES TO JARED GOFF, A WORKING MAN FOR DETROIT
Thanks to hulking, bearded Dan Campbell, the Lions and their once-browbeaten quarterback soar toward the NFL's divisional round, with Goff ending the season of the Rams and Matthew Stafford
His eyes were glazed upward, a creepy moment involving a roof, as two Detroit behemoths made him stare from the field. Was he thinking about Eminem, who had called him out on NBC? “Stafford. What’d I say? You owe me this favor, bro. I was there for you,” he said, referring to his championship scene from two years ago. “I rapped for you, Stafford. Can you just let us have this one? Just this one?”
The game, he meant, which would be the first postseason victory for the Lions since January 1992. Did Matthew Stafford wonder if his wife would demand he retire again on her podcast? Did he realize the torn city that never helped him win — allowing him to reach Los Angeles and win the Super Bowl — needed a victory as badly as Eminem wanted? He went to the injury tent and returned, as he always does. “I took a shot in the ribs and came back in,” he said.
But blurry as he was, Stafford managed to throw on third down in the last few minutes Sunday night — and was robbed by an official. Cornerback Cameron Sutton grabbed the jersey of Puka Nacua, another bad call in an NFL playoff game, and the Rams were forced to punt. That was more than enough leverage for Jared Goff, the quarterback who crash-landed in the Stafford deal, traded to the Lions in January 2021 in what best was described as a burned-crisp job by his boss. Sean McVay wanted him out of town. The coach was vacationing in Cabo San Lucas and, on the spot, began recruiting Stafford when he ran into him. A trade happened, with Goff suffering the mind lumps of a man who couldn’t make it in Hollywood.
Finally, here was Goff’s great revenge, which accompanied Stafford’s loss. It didn’t have the historic magic of winning the biggest game at SoFi Stadium, as Stafford had done. But to return and beat McVay, with another team that hadn’t achieved anything in decades, was lovely retaliation and gave the Lions a divisional home game next weekend. Stafford had accomplished what he wanted shortly after arriving in southern California. Now, unfair as the call was and despite charitable deeds he and his wife have done in Michigan, it was time to go home.
What carries on is the hulking leadership of Dan Campbell, who could climb into a UFC ring with no backlash, and how he has led the Lions to places they’ve never been. They are a prime story in the NFL and are favored to appear, most likely in San Francisco, for an NFC spot determining a Super Bowl berth. This is the man who showed up three years ago and said, “We’re gonna kick you in the teeth, and when you punch us back, we’re going to smile at you. And when you knock us down, we’re gonna get up. And on the way up, we’re going to bite a kneecap off.”
He coaches with such bearded enterprise, at 6 foot 5 with forearms that could pulverize McVay in a nanosecond. He once delivered a speech to his team while losing a false tooth. Since his first year, which he spent reviving Goff’s confidence while starting 0-10-1, he has led the Lions to a 12-5 record and an NFC North title before putting away the Rams at magnificent Ford Field. The 24-23 victory was all about Goff resuming a career that began as the No. 1 overall draft pick, but it also was about Campbell showing a unique way of motivating a football team. When Goff entered the locker room, the coach immediately threw him the game ball. And why not? The Lions scored three touchdowns when they entered the opponents’ red zone. The Rams settled for field goals. Peppered the coach: “I’ll just say it like this, alright? Hey, you’re good enough for f–king Detroit, Jared Goff.” Perfect.
“Just look around. This means a whole lot. And it’s just the beginning for us,” Goff said. “I kind of had to subdue a lot of emotions this week and was able to enjoy that moment. Now we’ve got some run left.”
“He was just locked in all week,” Campbell said. “He’s really been that way for six weeks now, where you feel like, ‘Whew, he’s really honed in here.’ Just really proud of him and what he means to us. He’s one of the reasons that we’ve won this division and another reason why we just won our first playoff game in 30 years. So, what a stud.”
If Stafford wondered if he still had fans, they booed him all night, perhaps recalling his 0-3 playoff record with the Lions. He wasn’t wrong in what he said last week, assuming, “I’m the bad guy. I’m on the other team. They don’t want success for me.” He didn’t have it. Goff, meanwhile, was greeted with constant chants of “Jar-ed GOFF!” -- of which, he said, “I’ve never experienced anything like that. I’m grateful for their support, and today, with the circumstances that were there, it meant a lot. It was special.”
Stafford greeted him with a hug afterward. “He's their quarterback. He's playing great. He led them to a win today,” he said. “I’m happy for him. I thought he played excellent. He's leading an offense that's playing at a really good clip right now and they should be proud of him. They should be cheering for him.”
They are ready to build him a statue. Barry Sanders was in the crowd after quitting the Lions prematurely, but he’s a peon compared to Goff. “Just can't say enough good things about him. I feel like it just confirms for everybody what we already know,” offensive tackle Taylor Decker said. “He's a special player and we wouldn't be where we're at without him. That being said, this game was about a lot more than that, to me, to the city, it was about us. Of course, Jared plays a big part in that. This is about Detroit, it's about us and what we've built here.”
As for McVay, he acknowledges he has matured. Would he trade for Stafford again? Of course. But he looked inward in his rough treatment of Goff. “The thing that I’ll never run away from are mistakes I’ve made in previous instances. When you look back on it, the gratitude for those four years (with Goff), all the good memories that we had — and then when you end up making a change, that ended up being difficult,” McVay said. “Could it have been handled better on my end? Absolutely. He deserved better than the way it all went down. I’ll acknowledge that. And I think he knows that, too. And I’m not afraid to admit to those things. The further you get away from it, the more that you try to grow as a man, as a person, as the leader that you want to become.”
He watched Goff finish his season, in fact, with a throw to Amon-Ra St. Brown that killed the clock. The respect is growing. And when Stafford retires, Goff will make big money and lead the Lions. “Jared was really efficient. You could see the command he has,” McVay said. “There’s a lot made of it, but I’m really happy for him. He’s done a great job. I think that if there’s anything, I have more appreciation for him as time goes on. He’s nothing but a class act. There’s a reason why they’re in this position.”
With a new opponent next weekend, Goff is moving on. He wants his own Super Bowl. “We had our differences there at the end, but he’s a great coach,” Goff said. “He’s done a lot of great things and, you know, he’s a guy that taught me a lot.”
The world puts fans through hellish experiences. The Cubs finally won. The Red Sox won. The New Orleans Saints won. Are the Detroit Lions next? The eyeballs of Matthew Stafford, fixed toward the sky, were suggesting as much.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.