Dan Campbell’s first year at the helm of the Detroit Lions looked much different than the 2024-2025 season. In the inaugural season, the Detroit Lions went 0-10-1 to begin the year, before salvaging three wins in the final six games.
Jared Goff was in a similar situation. The California product posted his worst season (excluding his rookie year, where he started only seven games) in terms of wins, yards, and touchdowns in his initial season in Detroit.
However, thanks to the team sticking with him and his development, Goff has been excellent for the Lions in the three years since. He bonded well with Ben Johnson, the team’s former offensive coordinator.
With increasing comfortability, Goff has become a bigger part of game-planning and finding ways to exploit opposing weaknesses.
Heading into the 2025 season, on the heels of a campaign in which he led the team to 15 wins and was an MVP finalist, Campbell hinted that Goff may be in a position to handle even more of the offense with new coordinator John Morton.
“Last year, he came to us, everything we wanted him to do in the offense he did,” Campbell said Tuesday. “And then he began to bring stuff to us, ‘Hey man, I can see this look. Let me get to this play. I know I’ve got these options in the bag, but let me get to this as well.’ Those are the things where he’s, ‘Okay, here we go man.’ That’s beginning to show. And I would anticipate that to take another step up.”
How Campbell’s help with Goff in 2021 resulted in major success
Goff’s move to Detroit was the first move of newly-hired GM Brad Holmes, who had a first-hand glimpse of Goff every day while he was an executive with the Rams organization.
“The Goff-Stafford trade, I had a pretty good idea that they were going to do some big things with Stafford at the helm,” Holmes said, via Pro Football Talk’s Mark Florio. “Obviously, getting Goff with the picks that we got, it was perfect for us. It was definitely a win-win.”
Both Campbell and Goff showed flashes of potential and promise in the first year of the QB-Head Coach marriage, and it all dated back to their first meeting.
Campbell put the keys in Goff’s hands, and it paid dividends.
“I’ll never forget the first meeting that we (Holmes and Campbell) had with him (Goff). It was just the three of us, and he (Goff) let out everything he went through,” Holmes said. “The way Dan approached, with the freedom Goff was going to have, that he was going to have the keys and it was going to be his team. He was going to be the leader, he had to earn the respect to be the captain. I think that initial approach and blueprint and plan that Dan had for him, I think that helped out a lot. I think that he (Goff) put the work in himself, as well.”
Campbell did not wait out Goff’s two years of guaranteed money to know he wanted Goff in Detroit. He had decided his QB1, and was ready to commit to it amidst the struggles of the opening season.
“About halfway through that (2021) season, we had a lot of close games through that 3-13 (year), he kept earning the trust,” Holmes expressed. “It got to like the mid- or a little bit after the midpoint of the year that Dan (Campbell) was like ‘yeah, this is our guy.’”
After that midpoint of the 2021 season, Goff led the Lions to victory in three of his final five starts of the year, with an 11:2 Touchdown-to-Interception ratio.
Goff has succeeded with the Lions since, posting a winning record in each of the next three seasons. He’s won two playoff games, and earned the 1-seed in the NFC last season. All of this success can be traced back to Campbell’s initial trust in 2021.
