After Jared Goff completed a career-low 37.8 percent of his passes in the Lions' loss to the Eagles last week, some critics pointed to the fact that Goff was wearing gloves on a chilly, blustery night in Philly.
Goff, in response, said Tuesday on 97.1 The Ticket, "I’ve been wearing them for a while. I’ve had some of my best games wearing them. When it’s cold and windy and it's a little dry out, it helps me a lot. I think it’s funny that in games that go well it doesn’t get asked about, but no, I understand. I understand. We didn’t play well, I didn’t play well, so gotta be better."
The numbers back him up. In his last five games wearing gloves prior to the Eagles game, dating back to 2022, Goff was 109-for-165 — right on par with his career completion rate of 66 percent — for 1,221 yards, eight touchdowns, two interceptions and a passer rating of 99.1. Goff's passer rating in his tenure with the Lions is 103.9.
He wore gloves last December in Chicago and threw for 336 yards, three touchdowns and no picks in a win over the Bears. He wore them at Carolina on Christmas Eve in 2022 and threw for 355 yards, three touchdowns and no picks in a loss to the Panthers. There have been less impressive games, too, like 2023 in Chicago, but Goff in gloves generally hasn't been a problem.
"They’re made for football, obviously, and I’ve been wearing them for 10 years now, and when it gets cold I think it helps me," he said.
The biggest issue in Philadelphia was the Eagles' dominant defensive line, especially on the interior. Jalen Carter and Jordan Davis combined for five batted-down passes, which "was part of their plan, clearly, and it worked," said Goff. "You gotta tip your cap."
But that hasn't been a trend for Goff, either. Asked what he can do to prevent it from becoming one, Goff said that "there’s certain ways you can anticipate where their hands are going to be and try to avoid that, but that’s hard. That’s really hard to do in the moment."
"But there’s certain things that you can do to get them off of the scent of a quick-game throw or the ball coming out of your hands that quickly," he said. "And typically when they get one, they’re looking for the second one; they get the second one, they’re looking for the third one. So it’s a little bit of a domino effect there."
Maybe more jarring than Goff's 14-for-37 line against Philly was the fact that he was just 2-for-12 targeting Amon-Ra St. Brown. It marked by far the worst catch rate of St. Brown's career and the worst catch rate of any NFL player with at least 12 targets in a since 2017. That included a miss on the third down prior to the Lions' failed fake punt where St. Brown was wide open over the middle but appeared to be on a different page than Goff, who threw behind behind.
All to say, a bad night. Asked about his connection with St. Brown, who has a career-high drop rate this season of 5.3 percent, Goff said, "I don’t think anything feels off, except for this past week. I was off trying to get him the ball."
"He’s playing well, man, I gotta find ways to get it to him in space and keep it more accurate in some of those instances. I have been in my career, so it's not something I’m worried about. Last week was a little bit off and prior to that I don’t think there’s been any issue," said Goff.