Saturday night was not the best night of Detroit Lions quarterback Jared Goff’s career. It just wasn’t. Four interceptions and a fumble in a really bad Divisional round loss to the Washington Commanders.
There was just no way that some Lions fans weren’t going to overreact about this. We saw a lot of stuff like this after the game.
Make no mistake, nothing about Saturday night changed the way the Lions organization feels about Jared Goff. They absolutely recognize that he had a bad game, but they also recognize how this type of stuff doesn’t affect what he does in the future. Goff has been through a lot of hell in his career and he bounces back and performs better every single time. He’s not going anywhere.
The same can’t be said for Hooker. I know a solid amount of Lions fans love the guy, but the signs that this isn’t working out have been there all year long.
The Lions spent the entire summer telling us that they didn’t think he was ready quite yet. The Lions talked all summer about whether or not they would keep three quarterbacks and that goes up until the final day before cutdown time.
Ultimately Nate Sudfeld was really bad and the Lions had to make a move there, but the interest for another backup was always there. In November the Lions reportedly had “significant interest” in signing former Giants starter Daniel Jones. That didn’t wind up happening as Jones chose to go to the Vikings.
One month later Teddy Bridgewater came out of retirement and the Lions signed him. Dan Campbell talked about how the Lions were going into “a different world” and how he had a lot of trust for Bridgewater.
Then on Saturday, the Lions made Hooker inactive and the emergency quarterback and went with Bridgewater as their number two. A guy that was retired up until about three weeks ago.
Couple that with Hooker being 27-years-old already and the rumors that the Raiders could be interested if they wind up hiring Ben Johnson and it certainly looked like all the signs are pointing towards the Lions keeping Goff and possibly looking to replace Hooker this offseason.
We’ll see what happens in the offseason with Hooker, but know that there is no way that Jared Goff is not this team’s quarterback for a long time.