Goff never got frazzled by the disrespect, Campbell didn't either
Jared Goff has come a long way for the Detroit Lions. As has Dan Campbell and Brad Holmes. Back in 2021 the story was quite different. Goff was a bridge quarterback that was on the verge of maybe never being a starter again, Dan Campbell was a meathead who couldn't coach and Brad Holmes was […]
Jared Goff has come a long way for the Detroit Lions. As has Dan Campbell and Brad Holmes. Back in 2021 the story was quite different. Goff was a bridge quarterback that was on the verge of maybe never being a starter again, Dan Campbell was a meathead who couldn't coach and Brad Holmes was bad at finding talent. To top it all off, the Lions were 0-10-1. Everyone who had an "I told you so" in their pocket for when the Lions failed, was pulling it out and showing it off.
Today the Lions are a team on the rise and a team that's a couple wins away from winning it all. The 'I told you so's" have really faded away for the most part, but Lions head coach Dan Campbell hasn't forgotten about that and hasn't forgotten about the way that Jared Goff handled it.
"When you're in the middle of that year, I think somewhere around the bye that's when you really notice it. Because we're all under heat. I'm not a very good coach, and he's not a very good quarterback and Brad's not a very good evaluator of talent and can't get enough pieces. It's the whole thing and so you can't listen to all that but I just know that when all that stuff was surfacing, man, he was just, you know, I mean, that's about as bad as it gets. And he never got frazzled by it. And I just think that's impressive."
It is impressive. Goff showed to be extremely resilient through all of that. And it was really bad and everyone was guilty of thinking past Goff in that time. He had some bad games in the beginning too, but not once did you see him change his demeanor or appear to let it get to him. As we've written about in the past, the relationship he formed with Campbell seems to have played a big part in that.
An interesting part of that relationship goes back to that 2021 season. Campbell's comments on Friday seem to show that he found a lot of respect for his quarterback during the bad times.
"It's easy when everything's going right and you're winning games. Guys around, they all love it and want be a part of it. But when you when you are 0-10-1, you find out about people, you find out about players and coaches, people in the organization. And so that's why you have the best perception of what those people are and how they're made and what drives them and what they're willing to do for those around them. That's a much better viewpoint and look at people than when everything's going great and you got 12 wins. So he's one of those guys. I know exactly what he is when it's at its worst. And I'll take that guy any day."
That's a pretty great thought process and it makes sense. Things are easy when you're winning. It easy to take the little bad stuff when everything is mostly good. But when everything is as bad as it can be, who's going to stick around and keep giving it their all? We know now that Jared Goff was one of those guys. We also know that the disrespect didn't affect Dan Campbell or Brad Holmes either. They stayed on the path and kept doing what they wanted to do. That's a big part of why the Lions are here today.
As for the "I told you so's" Campbell's comments from Monday certainly made it seem like he has some of his own.
“Yeah, I’ve got a whole ton of those, but it’s not time to pull those out yet. There will be a time and place for that.”
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