Jared Goff senses Lions’ elevated ‘urgency’ heading into 2023

ALLEN PARK, Mich. — As Jared Goff entered the Detroit Lions‘ practice facility on Tuesday for voluntary offseason workouts, the veteran quarterback sensed elevated “urgency” from not only teammates but also the front office to possibly make the playoffs for the first time since 2016.

After leading the Lions (9-8) to their first winning season since 2017, Goff said there’s heightened expectations to reach the postseason this year after winning eight of their final 10 games in 2022.

“We played better last year and have a lot of work to do still, but yeah, we’re a better team,” Goff said. “We’ll get teams’ better shots, maybe, but we certainly have done a lot of things that have improved our chances and hopefully can give us a better chance this year.”

The commitment to improving was evident through Detroit’s approach in acquiring its offseason talent, which included the signing of former Chicago Bears running back David Montgomery. The secondary has also been upgraded with the additions of C.J. Gardner-Johnson, Cameron Sutton and Emmanuel Moseley. And the Lions have given Goff another offensive weapon with veteran wide receiver Marvin Jones Jr. after losing free agent receiver DJ Chark to the Carolina Panthers.

“You can see it up top, too, with the moves they’ve made in the offseason, and it’s slightly more aggressive this year,” Goff said. “This is my third offseason here now and you can see the aggressiveness in them, and it trickles to us. We see everything. We know what’s going on.”

Goff recently hosted a throwing session for a couple of days in California in which he invited Lions receivers Amon-Ra St. Brown, Maurice Alexander, Jameson Williams, Tom Kennedy, Kalif Raymond, Josh Reynolds and backup quarterback Nate Sudfeld to work and build on their foundation.

“It was awesome. We all linked up like two weeks ago, back in California, had a lot of receivers there, the QBs and we were just running around, throwing routes, catching balls,” St. Brown recalled. “[Jameson Williams] looked good. I’m excited to see what he does.”

Detroit holds picks No. 6 and 18 in the opening round of the upcoming draft. And although Goff remains under contract through 2024, he said he hasn’t started any talks about an extension yet.

“Not up to me,” he said.

With the Lions also holding two second-round picks, Goff said there has been an open communication between himself and general manager Brad Holmes about any future plans of bringing in another quarterback for the organization.

Goff is coming off a strong season in which he was named to his third career Pro Bowl Games as a replacement for Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts. Goff was sixth in the NFL in passing yards last season (4,438). He threw 29 touchdown passes and only seven interceptions, leading the league in touchdown-to-interception ratio (4.14).

He said he welcomes any competition, if it’ll add depth to the roster.

“Of course, yeah. That’s not my job to decide what we need on our roster, but if they need to bring somebody in to be there in case something happens to me, of course that’s their decision,” Goff said. “I know [Nate Sudfeld’s] here now. I love hanging out with Nate and he does a great job, but yeah, it’s not up to me and I’ll be good to go with whatever happens.”

However, Holmes has made it clear that although Goff is the starter this year, the GM is working to address the backup quarterback situation to make sure the Lions have a stronger option in case something were to happen to Goff.

“I feel like last year we kind of left training camp kind of sliding into home plate trying to fill that backup quarterback role. And that’s on me,” Holmes said during the 2023 NFL combine. “I gotta do a better job of making sure that we’re not in that position again. So that is something that we’re gonna need to address whether it’s here in free agency or upcoming in the draft. But that’s something that we’ve had a lot of conversations about. I gotta do a better job of making sure we get that rectified.”