With fellow Cal quarterback Aaron Rodgers embarking on his final NFL season at the age of 42, Jared Goff smiled and said Monday, “Yeah, pretty good, something to look forward to for me.”
Goff is entering year 11 in the NFL, year six with the Lions. He turns 32 in October. Asked if he indeed wants to play as long as Rodgers, who's entering year 22, Goff said, "I don’t know, we’ll see."
Goff isn't slowing down. In fact, he's getting better with age. He leads the NFL over the last three seasons in completions, yards and touchdowns and ranks second in passer rating (104.8) to Lamar Jackson, without missing a game over that stretch. He's at the peak of his powers as he tries to lead the Lions to a Super Bowl.
Has he ever thought about how much longer he wants to do it?
"No, I’m right in the middle of it. No, I haven't," said Goff. "Until I don't feel like I can help a team win a championship. And I think that's going to be a long time."
Jared Goff on rhythm of Drew Petzing's offense: "The last four or five practices it’s really started to come together nicely where we’re running stuff that looks the same but it’s different. We’re able to mess with the defense in certain looks." pic.twitter.com/BJ9MJjY6xo
— 97.1 The Ticket: (@971theticketxyt) August 10, 2026
Goff is under contract with the Lions through 2028 after signing a four-year, $212 million extension that kicked in last season. He looks as focused ever to lead Detroit to success this season after last year's disappointing finish.
"It's the mentality, the urgency, the leadership, the, ‘Hey man, let's go. We cannot accept anything less than the best,'" said Dan Campbell. "He wants to be the best in the league and he wants to run the best offense in the league. And to get there, we’ve got to go, we don't have time. That's where I really feel him growing.
"And every year I've felt more of an urgency out of him in that regard, more command, more leadership, and that has to come organically. It can't be forced on somebody. So that's great to see out of him.”
"I think it’s just human nature," said Goff, "you start realizing where things can slip and you don’t want to allow that to happen. And the older I get, the more I'm learning and trying to stay on that type of stuff. That's good that it's noticeable. It's not necessarily something I'm conscious of every day, but I think it's just overall a little bit more of that mindset this year."
As for Rodgers, Goff praised him for being "one of the all-time greats" and said that "it was always fun to compete against him as a guy I grew up watching, a guy I grew up a fan of ... And he's been great to me, and I wish him the best."
