ALLEN PARK -- Lose for long enough in this league, and change will come for you. It already has for the Detroit Lions. They’ve lost their last five games to plunge back to the bottom of the league, and now they’ve canned an assistant coach before trading their leading receiver to a division rival.
Change is already here. Now armed with five of the first 65 picks in next year’s draft -- including the No. 1 overall pick -- you have to wonder if change is coming for Jared Goff too.
Unless, of course, you’re Jared Goff.
“We don’t (address it internally),” quarterbacks coach Mark Brunell said before practice on Friday. “He’s smart enough to know we do not go there. It’s not the time nor the place. Right now, it’s about the Packers. That’s something that you guys talk about, but no, that’s not what we’re going to do during the season. Not at all. Not at all.”
Column: The clock is already ticking on Jared Goff
Fair enough. The more these losses stack up, the more Goff’s job will come under scrutiny next offseason. The same can be said for head coach Dan Campbell and so many members of this coaching staff. Heck, Aubrey Pleasant already lost his job as defensive backs coach this week. That’s what happens when you lose in this league, and the Lions are losing faster than anyone.
But with the Lions’ playoff hopes already reduced to a pipe dream -- only the 1970 Cincinnati Bengals have ever made the postseason after a 1-6 start -- the external discussion is already beginning to turn toward the future. That includes next year’s draft, where Detroit currently holds the No. 1 overall pick. That would allow the club to plug any player it wants into this frustrating rebuild.
That could be a pass-rusher like Alabama’s Will Anderson. Pair him with recent early-round picks like Aidan Hutchinson and Josh Paschal, and the Lions would have a young, talented pass-rushing corps around which to build no matter what happens with the disappointing Levi Onwuzurike.
But more likely, that top pick will be a quarterback. This is a deep class that is led by dual-threat guys like Alabama’s Bryce Young and Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud at the top, providing the Lions with some flexibility to add the long-term quarterback they’ve never really had since dealing Matthew Stafford to the Los Angeles Rams last year.
They’ve remained publicly committed to Goff since that trade, and given him two years worth of opportunities to prove he can be the long-term answer. He’s shown flashes along the way too, including putting together a strong month-and-a-half to finish last season before leading Detroit to the most points in the league in the first month of this season.
But the offense has fallen into disarray since, including getting shut out in New England and failing to score a second-half point in each of the last three games. Injuries have hurt, no doubt about that, with guys like DJ Chark, Jameson Williams and D’Andre Swift all missing extended time. Amon-Ra St. Brown has played through a high-ankle sprain too, plus was removed from the Cowboys game from exhibiting concussion-like symptoms. Now Josh Reynolds is battling a back injury that is threatening his availability on Sunday against Green Bay.
Those are tough losses, and Goff has not handled it well, notably coughing up four turnovers in a loss against the Cowboys two weeks ago.
“Yeah, can’t do it,” Goff said. “Defense played their tails off and gave us a great chance to win that game. And we didn’t do our part offensively.”
True. But turnovers have become a prolonged issue for Goff, who now has nine of them this season -- fourth most in the league -- and 47 over the last three seasons combined. That’s a league-worst.
Goff has been far from the Lions’ biggest problem this season. But the Lions are reeling. Now they’ve traded starting tight end T.J. Hockenson -- their leading receiver at the moment -- to the Minnesota Vikings, which will make the worst team in the league even worse. With the Lions sitting on draft picks that would allow them to take any player they want at the game’s most important position, it will be difficult for them to pass on the opportunity to add their quarterback of the future -- and the cost-controlled contract that would come with it.
There’s a lot on Goff’s shoulders these days, and few understand that pressure better than Brunell. He played the position for 19 years, and is trying to be a calm in the storm for his quarterback.
“It’s one of the things that we talk about, is controlling what you can control,” Brunell said. “I think Jared has done a very good job with that. It’s hard to do that. It’s hard when things are going on around you that affects you tremendously, but yet you’ve got to focus on your job, preparing the way you have to prepare, but at the same time knowing that, ‘Man, there’s an injury here, this guy’s not there,’ there’s a lot going on, and being emotionally mature to handle that, mature enough to handle that, is important for that position.
“Man, unless you’ve done it before, you have no idea -- you have no idea -- what it’s like. The pressure, the demands. Unless you’ve been in his shoes, you just don’t know. And so we talk a lot about that and those things, and preparing for a game and being positive and blocking out the distractions and just going forward, man. It’s hard to do. But again, I think Jared does a very good job. It’s not easy, but I’ve been impressed with him this year. Our record is our record, and it’s unfortunate, but it cannot affect his preparation, his positive attitude, and being the starter for our team.”
