Through two games, Jared Goff has thrown three picks. He's lucky it's not more than that after a pair of shaky performances to start the season.
Goff had one of his worst games as quarterback of the Lions in the team's 20-16 loss to the Buccaneers on Sunday. Don't be fooled by the yardage, which was the product of attempting 55 passes, the most since his Lions debut.
Goff was picked off on the Lions' first offensive play of the game, albeit on what appeared to be a missed pass interference call, and again on a bad decision and a worse throw at a critical juncture of the fourth quarter.
"Felt like I was in a great rhythm at times throughout that game. Had two costly turnovers there," he said. "The first play of the game was unfortunate the way it happened, but the second one was entirely on me."
On his first interception, Goff was targeting Jameson Williams coming across the middle, but Williams was hooked and knocked off his route by a Bucs defensive back well beyond the point of legal contact. Goff's pass went to where Williams would have been and wound up in the hands of cornerback Zyon McCollum.
“What did I see? I saw a pass interference on the defense," Goff said. "But listen, I’ve had a million plays that should have been called pass interference that weren’t and that’s one of them. Chalk it up to the game, it happens. You take the punches and move on.”
The killer interception came on second down from Tampa's 28 with 7:41 to play, the Lions trailing 20-16. Under pressure from two Bucs defenders, Goff threw a back-foot pass over the middle to no one in particular -- maybe Tim Patrick who was streaking toward the end zone. The ball landed in the bread basket of safety Christian Izien without a Lions receiver anywhere in the vicinity. Even a field goal on that drive would have dramatically altered the end of the game.
Goff and the offense had two more drives to find the end zone, but failed to punch it in. On the final drive, which started on the Bucs' 44 with 33 seconds to play, Goff burned the Lions' last timeout by throwing his first pass over the middle for a nine-yard gain to Amon-Ra St. Brown. He threw his next three passes, all of which were incomplete, well short of the end zone and the Lions ran out of downs and time. His final throw bounced to Tom Kennedy, a fitting end to a frustrating day.
"We were trying to get inside the 20, inside the 15 to where your percentages go up to throw it in the end zone," Goff said. "If you throw it into the end zone from outside of those areas, it typically is a pretty low percentage. That last play there we had something on and it was a crap throw, and just couldn’t get it done.”
The Lions finished 1-for-7 in the red zone, where Goff credited the Bucs for getting "really stingy" by mixing up their fronts and "undercutting routes at times." Left tackle Taylor Decker pointed to "just a lack of execution down there when we needed to make plays."
"And the run game for us, as an offensive line, we can’t have negatives or no-gains. That’s brutal, especially because we pride ourselves on being able to run the ball in the red zone, even though that is a really good front. We just have to be better," said Decker.
Goff threw for over 300 yards on the game, but had his second lowest passer rating (61.7) in four seasons with Detroit. He also played beneath his standard last week in the Lions' win over the Rams, but Dan Campbell has no doubt that Goff will bounce back.
"He’ll rebound. Has he played better? Yeah, he’s played better. But I know him and he never stays down. He’s going to be in immediately. He’s going to look at it tonight, he’s going to come in tomorrow and he’s going to take ownership and he’s going to be better. That’s the way he’s wired and it’s what makes him who he is. He’ll get in a rhythm and he’ll be fine, and we have plenty around him to help as well," said Campbell.
Asked if the loss is a wakeup call for the Lions, Goff said that it's more of an opportunity for us to look and say, ‘OK, what went wrong and how can we fix it?’"
"If I remember correctly, we started 1-1 last year and we were able to respond from that pretty well," he said. "It’s early in the year, but it’s a good learning experience and a chance for us to dive in to what went wrong and how to not let that stuff happen again.”