Jared Goff has four fumbles in the past two games and an NFL-high six on the season. A few have them have cost his team points, like when Goff was stripped by Everson Griffen with the Lions approaching the red zone in the first quarter of last Sunday's loss to the Vikings.
Detroit isn't good enough to be giving away possessions. Goff knows it. He said Tuesday he's conscious of taking better care of the ball. At the same time, Goff's not going to beat himself up or make major changes to his mechanics. He said each fumble has to be viewed on its own.
"Looking specifically at myself, two of them were snap exchanges, so that’s not necessarily in the pocket. And then last week, that’s lack of ball security on my part," Goff told the Karsch & Anderson Show. "Of course I know those guys up front want to be better, but it doesn’t matter if I take care of the ball. I should be able to take a snap and not just fumble the ball there.
"So it's something that I’m absolutely conscious of and always working on, but not something that I’m going to overly pressure myself with. I think I’ve done a decent job with it.
After struggling with fumbles in his first few NFL seasons, Goff was better last year. But this year he's regressed. He now has 43 fumbles since 2017, tied for second most in the NFL. He also has small hands by the standards of an NFL quarterback, but Dan Campbell dismissed that concern last week. Goff said it's just a matter of keeping two hands on the ball under pressure.
"There’s times where, yeah, you do save some fumbles by keeping two hands on the ball right there," he said. "I didn’t (against Griffen), I had one hand on the ball, and that’s probably why it happened. But throughout my career, I think I've been pretty good at keeping two hands on the ball. Just had a lapse in ability there to do that."