Every year before the season starts, a number of publications and experts give their rankings of the quarterbacks in the NFL. The Lions’ Jared Goff is annually disrespected on these lists. One of the more popular preseason rankings is put out by Pro Football Focus (PFF). Every year, they release their rankings of All 32 Starters Ahead Of The 20XX Season.
Before last season kicked off, PFF had Goff ranked ninth in the NFL. This was a bit of a jump because they had ranked him 16th in 2024 and 16th again in 2023. In order to be so close to the bottom half of the league, he’d have to be average at best, but Detroit’s quarterback is far from that. Statistically, he’s not just one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL, but he’s arguably the number one overall.
Lions Jared Goff Dominates The Stats
It would be easy to rank big-name players like Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes ahead of Goff. They are the face of the league, and he’s just a quarterback who was traded for Matt Stafford (who is also ranked higher than Goff annually). Numbers don’t lie, though, and they have no bias. They just are what they are.
Goff’s numbers have been phenomenal the last three seasons. He is tied for first in the NFL in wins (36) with Allen from the Bills. They both have 36-15 records, and while no player in the league (not even a quarterback) has ever won a game (teams win games, not players), it’s still a stat worth noting. It’s not the only one that Goff leads the league in either.
Goff has thrown more touchdown passes than any other signal-caller (101). That’s 12 percent better than the second-place QB Stafford (90). He also doesn’t throw many interceptions. His 3.16 touchdown-to-interception ratio is fourth best in the NFL behind Lamar Jackson (4.8), Joe Burrow (3.75), and Stafford (3.33). Goff is practically third, though, considering Burrow has played only 35 games over the last three seasons (fewer games played than Goff has won).
Goff is also the league leader with yards per game over the past three years (270). Dak Prescott (263) and Stafford (259) are just behind. Goff is third in completion percentage (69.1) behind Tua Tagovailoa (69.9) and Patriots quarterback Drake Maye (69.8), who hasn’t played three seasons in his career yet. Why does he complete so many passes? Because he’s ungodly accurate. He has the best on-target percentage of passes thrown in the NFL.
All this leads to Goff’s incredible passer rating (104.8), which trails just Jackson from the Ravens (109.5). How could a player who is fourth or better in every major passing category, and the leader in half of them, be ranked ninth out of 32 QB’s? How could he be ranked 16th? It’s puzzling because it’s not even publication bias. It’s hard to find any website, podcast, or TV analyst who ranks Gof in the top five.
Maybe it’s his lack of playoff success. To the simple-minded sports fan, a player who lights it up in the regular season but not the postseason is not as good as a quarterback who is average in the regualr season, but wins in the playoffs. Even though that’s not completely true, though, because Jackson is frequently ranked higher than Goff, and the Ravens have had the same postseason struggles as the Lions.
PFF has not released its rankings for 2026 yet. Maybe Goff will get all the way up to number seven this year. Or maybe he’ll drop back to 16. One thing is for certain, and that’s that he will be ranked far below what he will perform.
