Heres' why Jared Goff got ranked above your quarterback in the NFL 100
It's NFL 100 week! Every year the NFL polls it's players to determine who the top 100 players in the league are. This year Detroit Lions quarterback made the list at 66. There are some fanbases in their feelings about it. Here's the quarterbacks that Goff ranked higher than and their personal ranking. Lamar Jackson: […]
It's NFL 100 week! Every year the NFL polls it's players to determine who the top 100 players in the league are. This year Detroit Lions quarterback made the list at 66. There are some fanbases in their feelings about it. Here's the quarterbacks that Goff ranked higher than and their personal ranking.
- Lamar Jackson: 72
- Geno Smith: 77
- Tua Tagovailoa: 82
- Justin Fields: 86
- Trevor Lawrence: 96
There's many reasons why Jared Goff got ranked higher than these quarterbacks. I think the best thing I can do today is take the fans of these quarterbacks by the hand and sit them down to explain why Goff is ranked higher than their quarterback. Let's jump into it.
The Ranking Rules
Let's start off with the obvious. The NFL 100 is the most important player ranking out there because the ranking is determined by players who actually play with or against the players they vote for. This isn't determined by fans, media, coaches or executives.
The other thing is that this ranking is based off what the player did during the 2022 season. Sorry Ravens fans, Lamar Jackson's MVP season in 2019 doesn't make up for the fact that he missed five games last season.
Stats
This one is simple. You might think that Jared Goff is bad or that he's still the guy that the Rams gave up on, but he plain and simple just performed better than your quarterback did in 2022. Let's take a look at the full bevy of stats. Alright let's take a look. Goff has more passing yards than everyone,
| Player | Passing Yards | Passing Touchdowns | Interceptions | Fumbles | Completion % | Passer Rating | Rushing Yards | Rushing Touchdowns |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Jared Goff | 4,438 | 29 | 7 | 7 | 65.1 | 99.3 | 73 | 0 |
Lamar Jackson | 2,242 | 17 | 7 | 5 | 62.3 | 91.1 | 764 | 3 |
Geno Smith | 4,282 | 30 | 11 | 8 | 69.8 | 100.9 | 366 | 1 |
Tua Tagovailoa | 3,548 | 25 | 8 | 6 | 64.8 | 105.5 | 70 | 0 |
Justin Fields | 2,242 | 17 | 11 | 16 | 60.4 | 85.2 | 1,143 | 8 |
Trevor Lawrence | 4,113 | 25 | 8 | 12 | 66.3 | 95.2 | 291 | 5 |
Alright let's see what we got here. Let's list all the reasons that jump out to us shall we?
- Goff has more passing yards than everyone
- He has more passing touchdowns than everyone except Geno Smith, who has one more than Goff
- He has the fewest interceptions. Him and Lamar are tied, but Goff also played five more games
- Goff has the third fewest fumbles. Sweet Jesus Justin Fields drops that thing a lot
- Goff has the third highest completion percentage
- Goff has the third highest passer rating
He's definitely not moving those feet. Everyone has him beat there, but he mostly has everyone else beat everywhere else.
Advanced Passing
I know how all this works. There's bound to be people in the comments saying "yeah, but Goff only checks down to St. Brown. He doesn't have an arm." Welp, here's the deep ball passing stats for those people. These are curtesy of Pro Football Focus.
| Player | Deep Passing Yards | Deep Passing Touchdowns | Passer Rating | Deep Completion % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Jared Goff | 723 | 5 | 104.2 | 41.8 |
Lamar Jackson | 407 | 5 | 72 | 29.8 |
Geno Smith | 846 | 14 | 120.2 | 47.6 |
Tua Tagovailoa | 990 | 10 | 124.1 | 24.5 |
Justin Fields | 624 | 7 | 89.4 | 35.3 |
Trevor Lawrence | 690 | 8 | 86 | 34.3 |
Let's see what we have here. Is Goff the best? No he is not. He's right in the thick of everything and near the top in every category though. Definitely isn't a case of him just checking down and letting his receivers do all the work though. In case you were wondering what the yards after the catch stats looked like, here you go.
| Player | Yards after the catch |
|---|---|
Jared Goff | 2,287 |
Lamar Jackson | 971 |
Geno Smith | 1,776 |
Tua Tagovailoa | 1,281 |
Justin Fields | 957 |
Trevor Lawrence | 2,002 |
Uh oh. Did I catch myself in a bit of a pickle here? Maybe. Goff did get some help from his receivers in 2022. More than any of these guys to be exact. There's a reason for that though. It's because Goff threw the ball more than any of these guys and completed it more than almost any of these guys. Look at the attempts and completion stats.
| Player | Pass Attempts | Pass Completions |
|---|---|---|
Jared Goff | 587 | 382 |
Lamar Jackson | 326 | 203 |
Geno Smith | 572 | 399 |
Tua Tagovailoa | 400 | 259 |
Justin Fields | 318 | 192 |
Trevor Lawrence | 584 | 387 |
Geno Smith sure did throw the ball a lot. I actually came away from this whole exercise with a higher appreciation for him. Solid work in 2022 Geno. The rest speaks for itself. If you're curious who's receivers had the most yards after the catch in 2022, look no further than the MVP of the league. 2,853 of Patrick Mahomes passing yards came after the catch. He's followed up by Tom Brady and Justin Herbert.
So that's that. This whole exercise was fun. Jared Goff is not the best quarterback in the league. Far from it in fact. But there's a reason he was ranked higher than your quarterback and that's because he had a phenomenal season and he was better than your quarterback in a lot of places. Fellow players around the league took notice.
Lions news: Jared Goff makes return to NFL 100 list
His first time since 2019
Featured image by Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
