The word on Jared Goff has always been that he’s great, unless he’s pressured, in which case he’s terrible. One of the reasons he has been so good for the Detroit Lions is the quality of his offensive line, which is excellent and keeps him largely clean. However, this season, things have changed. Drastically.
Jared Goff’s passer rating under pressure throughout his career:2024: 95.4 (5th) 2023: 62.5 (28th) 2022: 59.6 (30th) 2021: 69.2 (19th) 2020: 45.9 (32nd) 2019: 60.4 (26th) 2018: 59.8 (29th) 2017: 75.7 (12th) 2016: 47.5 (30th)His development this season is incredible! pic.twitter.com/TmPZYiYEKY
— LionsFanReport (@lionsfanreport) October 26, 2024
So, what the heck is happening here exactly? Has the 30-year-old Goff turned over a new leaf? Has he learned to stand tall in the face of pressure and start delivering better than every other quarterback in football? Is Ben Johnson just that good? Well…maybe. But I have a different theory that I think makes more sense.
Jared Goff is a tiny-handed vampire
When people argue with my nerd stats for being too nerdy and knock my books out of my hands, one common criticism that I hear over the sound of mouth-breathing is that you can use statistics to prove anything you want. To those people’s credit, this is true in a way. It’s not that you can prove ANYTHING with statistics, it’s more that there are a ton of ways to manipulate statistics to your will: Arbitrary end points, small samples, using results on the lower end of the spectrum as your basis for comparison, and focusing on qualities that have no impact on the issue in question are all time tested methods of lying with statistics. And so, we must always be sure to take the time to understand whether the statistic in front of us was calculated properly, with sound methodology, and in good faith.
I actually think that Goff HAS gotten better against pressure just based on the good old eye test, even last year (28th is better than 30th), but I doubt he should be up at 5th. And so, let’s do a little experiment. Let’s say you were assigned to make it look like Jared Goff had drastically improved against pressure, but you were not allowed to use any pressure stats like sacks or pressures to do so. How might you go about it? I, personally, would start by using a sample of games played entirely indoors (or in retractable domes), because one thing we know for sure over the large sample of Goff’s career is that he’s much, much better indoors…