I love going back in time on Twitter or X or whatever it is that you  prefer to call it. It's fun to find your old takes or your feelings about things from the past. Sometimes you find out how right you are and other times you find out how wrong you are. It's fun either way. 

This week I was doing some time traveling for a Jared Goff article I was writing and I came across an old tweet of mine that really sparked some inspiration to write something. Here's that tweet: 

Here’s how rookie quarterbacks are doing so far. Maybe the Lions were right to forgo drafting one.
Lawrence: 1,464 yards, 7 TD and 8 Int
Wilson: 1,168 yards, 4 TD and 9 Int
Lance: 354 yards, 3 TD and 1 Int
Fields: 816 yards, 2 TD and 6 Int
Jones: 1.779 yards, 9 TD and 6 Int

— Mike Payton (@AtoZ_Payton) October 25, 2021

Good times right? Remember the days when Goff was supposed to be nothing more than a bridge quarterback and we were all just waiting for the Lions to draft their next quarterback? 

This was seven games into Goff's run with the Lions. It wasn't going that well. What I want to do today is do an update of this tweet and see where things are at. The Lions didn't draft any of these guys or any of the guys in 2022 for that matter. Did they miss out? Should they have? Let's look at what Goff has done and then look at what these guys have done in that same stretch. 

By the way, I'm aware that a lot of those guys were taken before the Lions had an opportunity to pick, but we live in a world where Brad Holmes moves picks like their going out of style. It's not out of the realm of possibility that he could have traded up. Let's pretend for the sake of this experiment that he did. We'll just be doing the 2021 class because three years seems like a good time to measure everyone. We'll do the 2022 class next year. Here we go:

2021

Player	Yards	TD’s	INT’s	Fumbles	Comp %
Jared Goff	11,132	69	25	13	66.3
Trevor Lawrence	11,015	54	35	18	63.9
Zach Wilson	6,267	23	25	8	57.2
Trey Lance	797	5	3	0	54.9
Justin Fields	5,922	37	27	11	60.8
Mac Jones	8,918	46	36	6	66

I really thought Trevor Lawrence would come out looking better here just based off the way that people talk about him. He's had some real struggles with turnovers. Goff was able to do that much more than Lawrence despite playing three fewer games. I thought that was interesting. 

I also thought it was crazy that Zach Wilson has thrown for more yards than Justin Fields. I guess I never really considered that he's started 32 games. You get this feeling like he's always been benched. He hasn't. 

Mac Jones looked like the guy in that tweet. If you go back and read the comments, pretty much everyone felt that way. Jones went down pretty fast from there. He's likely to be coming off the bench or not be in New England and next season. 

Analytics and stuff 

I know there's a lot of people on the internet that won't accept stats, so let's dig a little deeper here shall we? Let's look at some analytics. We'll start with deep passing. Here's a look at Goff vs the 2021 field. Stats are from FTN. 

2021

Player	Att-Comp	Completion %	Accuarcy %	Yards	TD-INT
Jared Goff	54-136	39.5	71.1	1,637	14-7
Trevor Lawrence	65-177	37.1	75.6	1,942	14-12
Zach Wilson	38-108	34.6	71.4	1,187	3-7
Justin Fields	42-117	37.1	74.7	1,382	13-8
Mac Jones	48-154	28	73	1,519	7-10

Goff by pretty much all the numbers here shows to be the better deep passer. There are guys that are higher in accuracy percentage,  but Goff is completing more deep balls than any of these guys. 

Mac Jones is a really interesting one. This year he's only completed three of his 35 deep attempts. That 8% completion percentage is really dragging him down. he was ok in 2021 and 2022. 

Let's go over the passing against pressure metrics shall we? We'll start with pressures.

Passing against pressures

Player	Pressures	Completion %	TD’s	INT’s
Jared Goff	433	45.5	12	12
Trevor Lawrence	424	43.6	11	15
Zach Wilson	355	30.6	4	6
Justin Fields	377	47.8	11	10
Mac Jones	347	46.3	9	14

Turns out most quarterbacks aren't very good under pressure. I know, I was shocked too. It could really go anyway here in terms of passing against pressures. Let's dig a little deeper. 

Passing against hurries

Player	Hurries	Completion %	TD’s	INT’s
Jared Goff	193	49.3	3	3
Trevor Lawrence	222	50.4	8	10
Zach Wilson	175	30.2	4	4
Justin Fields	161	54.7	6	3
Mac Jones	167	50.6	7	6

Justin Fields is pretty good when hurried. Those legs really help him get out of danger. Goff is one of the worst here. There's no doubt about it. His legs do not help him get out of trouble. Let's look at one more thing and then we're dong here. 

Passing against the blitz

Player	Blitz’s	Completion %	TD’s	INT’s
Jared Goff	411	64.5	23	7
Trevor Lawrence	382	58	13	8
Zach Wilson	326	54.2	6	5
Justin Fields	263	61.9	12	4
Mac Jones	352	61.1	12	9

Everyone is better here, but Goff is the best against the blitz among these guys. Good stuff. 

My final thought is simple. The Lions made the right move when they decided not to take a quarterback in the 2021 NFL Draft. We'll see next year if their decision to not take a guy in the 2022 NFL Draft was also a good decision. I'm thinking it will be. It sure is easier to get worse at quarterback.

The recent play by Jared Goff looks really familiar, here’s what happened next

Let's just call a spade a spade here. Detroit Lions quarterback Jared Goff is playing some really bad football right now. Some of the worst that he's played since coming to Detroit. Take a look at what his last seven games have looked like.  120-262 for 1,831 yards, 10 touchdowns, seven interceptions and three fumbles. […]