If the Lions are going to make the kind of playoff push they’re chasing, Jared Goff has to give them a little more than the steady production he’s already provided. That’s the challenge sitting in front of new offensive coordinator Drew Petzing, and the clearest path to it may be getting Goff to push the ball downfield more often.
Goff is 31 now, and his résumé already looks crowded: three straight seasons with 4,500-plus passing yards and 30-plus touchdown passes. There isn’t some dramatic athletic leap coming next.
He’s not suddenly going to become a threat outside the pocket. So if there’s another gear to find, it has to come from how the offense is built around him.
One number jumps out right away. Last season, Goff tied for last with Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers in intended air yards per attempt at 6.0.
That stat tracks how far the ball is thrown on each attempt, whether the pass is completed or not. At the top of that list were the quarterbacks who finished 1-2 in MVP voting: Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford at 9.1 and New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye at 9.0.
Minnesota Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy was third at 8.9, which makes the stat a little messy, but Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love at 8.7 and Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams at 8.5 also sit near the top.
Three NFC North quarterbacks are in the top seven. Goff is last.
That matters because Goff is already extremely accurate, even when he does go deeper. Fantasy Points Data shared on X that he posted the best highly accurate throw rate on passes traveling 10 yards or more, at 56.0 percent, among quarterbacks with at least 100 attempts.
So the idea isn’t to turn Goff into someone he isn’t. It’s to stretch his efficiency a little farther down the field. If he can keep that accuracy while nudging the ball deeper, Detroit should have a much easier time moving the chains and finishing drives.
Even a small bump can change everything. Half a yard per attempt can be the difference between a three-and-out and a first down, a punt and a field goal, or a field goal and a touchdown. The Lions scored the fourth-most points in the league last season with 481, but the offense still hit stretches where it bogged down at the wrong time.
That’s where Petzing enters the picture. He’s already shown he can help a quarterback operate with more depth in the passing game.
Jacoby Brissett had a breakout season under Petzing last year despite going 1-11, throwing for a career-high 240.4 yards per game. That was a jump of 44.3 yards from his previous best of 196.1.
Brissett also set the NFL record for completions in a regular season game with 47, breaking the mark once held by Goff.
Brissett’s intended air yards per attempt also climbed to 7.6, right at league average, after sitting at 6.4 the year before in New England. Goff has only matched or beaten that 7.6 mark twice in his career, during his first two NFL seasons, and he hasn’t been above 7.0 since 2022.
Petzing should have the pieces to make that shift. Jameson Williams has put together back-to-back 1,000-yard receiving seasons and emerged as one of the league’s better receivers after Dan Campbell took over play-calling. Over that stretch, Williams ranked fifth in receiving yards with 762 and tied for first in 20-plus-yard catches with 17.
There’s more evidence Petzing can lean into that kind of production. Arizona’s Michael Wilson had his own deep-threat breakout last season and finished ahead of Williams in yards since Week 10. That points to a coordinator who may be more willing to use Williams in that role than former offensive coordinator John Morton did.
And Williams isn’t the only option. Petzing has Amon-Ra St. Brown, Isaac TeSlaa, a healthy Sam LaPorta, and Jahmyr Gibbs in the passing game, plus Goff himself, who is a better quarterback than anyone Petzing has had as an offensive coordinator.
With that much talent around him, Goff finishing last in intended air yards per attempt already looks hard to justify. If Petzing is going to avoid being lumped in with another failed OC like Morton, improving that number is one of the jobs in front of him in 2026. He’s already shown he can do it.
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