The Detroit Lions and Jared Goff are making headlines early this week for all the wrong reasons.
Head coach Dan Campbell made that the case when his team fell to 0-6 and he decided to call out Goff for his poor performance.
What can be seen as a motivation tool can also be interpreted as Campbell leaning toward benching his new highly-paid quarterback.
Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk suggested as much in a recent article, but could that actually happen?
Would Campbell actually bench Goff so early in the year?
"I feel like he needs to step up more than he has."
Lions coach Dan Campbell on Jared Goff. pic.twitter.com/hkbG3RkqQj
— The Sporting News (@sportingnews) October 17, 2021
The Backup Option
The first point of discussion when considering a benching is if the backup option would actually make the team better.
So when do we put David Blough in?
— Honolulu Blues (@HonoluluBlues_) October 17, 2021
In this case, David Blough is the player in focus.
Blough is in his third NFL season out of Purdue and while he has stuck with the Lions, there is no reason to believe he gives the team a better chance to win than Goff.
Unless he is absolutely lighting it up in practice behind closed doors.
Some fans may get dreams of landing someone like Cam Newton, but he is not going to sign with the 0-6 Lions.
The Likely Scenario
Goff is getting paid nearly $26 million this year and will make roughly the same amount next year.
The Lions don’t have a realistic way out of his contract until 2023, when his dead cap value drops to $10 million.
That means they are essentially stuck with him for two years.
Benching him only creates more problems and it is clear Goff is not the only issue for the Lions in 2021.
Campbell was likely trying to light any sort of fire under his quarterback and bring out the Goff who looked to be well above-average with the Los Angeles Rams.
The Lions knew this was going to be tough and that is why they wanted a haul of draft picks as well in exchange for taking on Goff’s money.
Now everyone, including Goff and Campbell, needs to work together to get the Lions a victory and move forward from there.
Goff is not the future in Detroit, but he still represents the present, no matter how bad things get.
