The Lions have signed their third key piece of the offseason. Detroit Lions general manager Brad Holmes has believed in Jared Goff since he made his debut in the NFL with the Los Angeles Rams, even when the critics and skeptics outside the organization were not so sure. Stamping those many years of support, the Lions rewarded the eight-year signal caller with a much-anticipated contract extension on Monday, sources with knowledge of the situation confirmed with the Detroit News.
According to the NFL Network, the four-year contract, reportedly worth up to $212 million, with $170 million guaranteed, commits Goff to the ‘Motor City’ and their community that he has built a relationship with, through the 2027 season, with an option year on the table for 2028.
The agreement is the latest, and biggest, extension handed out by the Lions this offseason, keeping the core of the team that won their first division title in thirty years and made a run to the NFC championship game last season against the San Francisco 49ers, intact for years to come.
The No. 1 pick in the 2016 NFL draft, Goff came to the Lions in a 2021 quarterback swap that sent Matthew Stafford to the Rams. It was an unexpected and sudden turn of events for the California native, who had signed a lucrative, four-year extension with the Rams just a year earlier. That pact included $110 million in guarantees, the most in league history, at the time.
For Holmes, the chance to add Goff, just weeks after accepting Detroit’s GM job, was an opportunity he could not pass up. As the Rams’ director of college scouting in 2016, Holmes backed up the franchise’s decision to pay the hefty price to trade up 14 spots in the draft to select Goff. And the quarterback did not disappoint in his first five seasons with the team, earning a pair of Pro Bowl nods, leading them to playoffs berths each of his four seasons as a starter, and steering the Rams to the Super Bowl in his third year under center, where they lost to Tom Brady and the Patriots 13-3.
When Stafford requested a trade the offseason of Holmes’ arrival, unwilling to go through yet another rebuild in Detroit, the GM had the difficult task of finding the best return possible. And while there were multiple noteworthy offers, none exceeded the Rams’ blockbuster package, which included a pair of first-round picks, and a third-rounder, in addition to the young, durable, franchise-caliber quarterback.
People that were not in the building every day, understandably saw the Rams giving up on and giving away Goff as cause for concern. On local sports talk radio shows, it ignited an immediate firestorm debate about whether the quarterback would be a bridge to what was next for the Lions; a top prospect the team could snag with the inevitable top-10 pick they would receive, while tanking to begin the rebuild.
However, Holmes never pictured it that way in his mind. Instead, there was an immediate push to empower Goff and give him the keys to the car, to maximize his abilities as a player and a leader through ownership. And while the first year was predictably rocky, as Holmes stripped down the roster to its studs, the general manager never wavered on his philosophy, turning down opportunities to select an heir at the position in the 2021 and ’22 drafts.
Holmes offered added insight into his thinking after the 2022 campaign, Goff’s second with the franchise, when the quarterback was already starting to reward the GM’s faith in him.
“It’s a lot easier to get worse at quarterback than to get better,” Holmes said.
At that juncture, Goff was coming off the best seasons of his career, leading the resurgent Lions to a 9-8 record on the back of an 8-2 finish, beating the Green Bay Packers in the final game of the season. The quarterback finished the year, his first paired with Ben Johnson as offensive coordinator, completing 65.1% of his passes for 4,438 yards, 29 touchdowns and seven interceptions.
Goff’s improved ball security, which had been inconsistent through much of his career, was key to both his individual and the team’s midseason turnarounds. Starting in Week 9, and carrying into the early stages of the next season, he embarked on a stretch of 383 consecutive passes without a pick, the longest streak in franchise history.
Embed from Getty ImagesWith an improved arsenal of weapons at his disposal, Goff continued to be one of the league’s most productive passers in 2023, posting a career-best completion percentage to go with top-five finishes in passing yards and touchdowns. More importantly, the team was able to build on its successful finish from the previous season, resulting in a 12-5 record and the franchise’s first division title in three decades.
The momentum carried into the playoffs, where Goff lifted the team to its first postseason victory since 1991, exacting some personal revenge in the process. Hosting the Rams team that traded him away, and riding a wave of support from the Ford Field crowd chanting his name the moment he stepped out of the tunnel for pre-game warmups, Goff delivered an out of this world performance, completing 22 of 27 passes for 277 yards, a touchdown and no interceptions in the victory.
Goff was similarly sharp in the following week’s win over Baker Mayfield and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, as well, which sent the Lions to the conference championship. And had Josh Reynolds managed to hold on to a pair of catchable passes, or 49ers receiver Brandon Aiyuk not hauled in a deflection off cornerback Kindle Vildor’s helmet in that matchup, there was a good chance we are talking about Goff as the first quarterback to lead the Lions to the Super Bowl.
Goff’s multi-year extension is the third the Lions have completed recently, following up agreements with wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown and offensive tackle Penei Sewell, two first-team All-Pros from Holmes’ inaugural draft class.
Assuming the typically durable Goff continues to avoid catastrophic injuries, he is on track to surpass the number of starts he had with the Rams in the first half of the 2025 season. With this new contract, his legacy will almost certainly be more tied to what he accomplishes in Detroit, especially if he can lead the team to an elusive Super Bowl appearance.
“Being shipped off and being sent to a place to die, essentially, is what a lot of people think it was and I was never going to allow that to happen,” Goff said in a recent podcast interview. “I’m fortunate enough to be around a lot of good coaches and players in Detroit that support me and help me reach my potential.
“…In hindsight, (being traded to Detroit) was the greatest thing that ever happened to me, for my career and my development as a human.”
