Dan Campbell wants his QB to make the right play first. Jared Goff can do more than that.

Jared Goff didn’t throw an interception his last nine games last season. He threw 324 passes without a pick.

Meanwhile, the offense he led ranked sixth in big plays in the passing game, if we’re measuring completions longer than 25 yards. Which means his ball security isn’t simply a result of him checking down every play.

No, he took some chances. He just didn’t chuck it down the field all the time.

To call him a game manager is a disservice to his arm talent. To call him a gunslinger is an overstatement.

Goff is somewhere between, which is more than good enough to win games in the NFL. See: the Super Bowl he played in.

The Detroit Lions quarterback played the best football of his career last fall. He believes he can get better. So does Dan Campbell, at least in certain moments.

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Figuring out those moments is the key.

“Yeah, look, I think for us,” Campbell said, “you’ve heard me say this: I tell Goff, man, he’s very much a piece of the puzzle here. He’s not — it’s not the end-all be-all. ‘We don’t need you to be a Hall of Fame quarterback out there. We just need you to run the offense, be efficient, make the throws that are there, be accurate when you pass,’ — because that’s what he does well.”

In general, saying a quarterback is accurate is faint praise. Though that’s not what Campbell was saying here. He said he wants Goff to “cut it loose” at times.

“We don’t really talk in terms of, ‘Be smart, be smart,’ because I think you … can create a little fear if you’re not careful. So, for us, it’s, ‘Hey, the play’s there, you know what to do. We’ve repped it out (in practice), now cut it loose. Play football.’”

Play football. It’s a phrase you hear often in Allen Park inside the team’s headquarters. Along with “football players,” as in: “We want football players.”

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Confused?

Don’t be. Campbell, and his partner in grit, Brad Holmes, obviously know that everyone who suits up in the NFL is a football player. They are looking for football players.

Players who are instinctive, resilient, tough and relentless, or some such combination. They want players who absorb their teachings and lessons and strategies, who show an understanding on the practice field and in the film and meeting rooms, and then take that foundational base and “cut it loose,” so to speak.

Goff showed all of that last season, especially down the stretch. No play showed this more than a 43-yard strike midway through the third quarter against the Green Bay Packers in the final regular season game of the year.

The Lions were trailing, 9-6, and were at the Packers’ 44-yard-line. It was first and 10.

Goff took the snap, dropped back, faked a handoff, spun right and back to his left, planted, and threw across his body some 40 yards in the air. Kalif Raymond caught it near the 1-yard-line.

The drop and fake and heave had been repped in practice. And while it wasn’t straight improv, Goff was under pressure and had to decide — quickly — whether to let it go.

He did.

The Lions will need that Goff from time to time. Heck, they may need that Goff on Thursday night in Kansas City, and he has to be OK that there will be some risk.

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As Campbell said:

“Look, there’s going to be things that happen. There’ll be interceptions this year. I mean that’s the nature of the game and sometimes those will come up and you’ve just got to put it behind you and go to the next one. So, we don’t want to coach out of fear.”

Translation: They don’t want Goff second-guessing himself again, as he did during his end days for Sean McVay in Los Angeles, as he did a bit during his first year with the Lions. The PTSD is there. Maybe not at the surface, but Goff was scapegoated in a very public way.

That may be the nature of the business, particularly the business of quarterbacking, and players have to learn to navigate the second-guessing, but Campbell and his staff, most notably, offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, don’t want to do anything to pretzel up their quarterback.

“Get us into the right play,” said Campbell.

That’s first.

From there, read the defense, be on time and on target. And if he finds himself in another shootout? Like the last — and only — time he played against Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs?

“If that’s the way the game goes, you’ve got to just kind of go with it and make the plays that are there,” he said.

Goff’s mix of precision and calculated risk is right where Campbell likes it. The Lions were one of the best offenses in the NFL with that mix, and with the potential for even more playmakers, Campbell and Johnson don’t want to do too much to pull Goff from the flow he found a season ago.

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Obviously, flow doesn’t always flow from one year to the next. Yet Goff sees an offense that can get even better, and it can.

Campbell is right that the Lions don’t need a Hall of Fame performance from their quarterback. But they need more than simple game management. They got a little more last season.

Now they’ll need even a little more.

Contact Shawn Windsor: 313-222-6487 or swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @shawnwindsor.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Lions just need QB Jared Goff to be steady, not superb