Dan Campbell makes bold claim about Jared Goff now vs. Jared Goff with Rams

Jared Goff led his last team to the Super Bowl, yet Dan Campbell believes his quarterback is far better now than he was with the Rams.

Granted, in June mini camp season, all NFL coaches are brimming with optimism. Yet Campbell probably was more so than other colleagues when it came to his Goff gushing.

Goff and Campbell have been together for the past two seasons. The Lions received Goff in a trade that also sent Matthew Stafford to LA. Of course, Stafford won a Super Bowl in his first season with the Rams. Meanwhile, Goff put up incredible passing numbers last fall and helped lead the Lion to a near playoff invite.

Of course there’s reason to expect more than a 9-8 record for 2023, especially with Goff under center.

“He hung in there,” Dan Campbell said of Jared Goff. “And I think what you’re seeing is a guy who just put his head down and worked on what he could, tried to improve on what he could, and now his confidence is really, it has grown, and along the way, he’s matured as a quarterback. I mean, he’s a better quarterback than he was (in Los Angeles), in my opinion, because he can do more things. He’s mentally on it.

“We’ve come light-years ahead of where he was two years ago,” Campbell told reporters at mini camp. “He’s got a real good grasp of what we’re doing, where the issues are, where the problems are, and that’s something that we really wanted him to get good at and he wanted to get good at, and he’s worked at it, and he’s improved.”

As Dan Campbell gushes, Jared Goff says he has a ton to prove

Goff and the Lions evolved from a 3-13-1 season in 2021 into a 9-8 squad a year later. They finished this past season with a road win over the Packers, their eighth victory in their last 10 games. The Lions had been eliminated from the playoffs earlier that Sunday. Still, with nothing to play for, the Lions knocked Green Bay from the post-season.

Although Dan Campbell is singing his praises, Jared Goff said he has “hell of a lot to prove this year.” His stats show that he arrived at a good spot in 2022. Overall, he threw for 4,438 yards with 29 touchdowns and seven interceptions. He also was clean in his play. Goff ended the year by completing 324 consecutive pass attempts without an interception. That’s the fifth longest streak in NFL history.

“I think we all understand that we’re not going to just show up and win because we were good for the last 10 games last year,” Goff said. “There is no reason for that. If anything, it’s gonna be harder, teams are gonna give us a better shot this year and we have to be prepared and have to approach it that way.

“If we try to walk out there, like we won eight out of 10 last year and it’s just going to keep on rolling, it won’t happen,” he said. “We need to show up and continue to get better.”