Detroit Lions' Jared Goff says he ignores critics. But he doesn't, and that's good

Detroit Lions quarterback Jared Goff is good enough to play in a Super Bowl. How do we know this? Um, because he played in a Super Bowl?

Oh, but the running game propelled those Rams. Remember Todd Gurley? And what about their defense? And Aaron Donald?

Yes, yes, some quarterbacks do it by themselves — Tom Brady, cough, cough. And some need 21 All-Pros in the locker room.

That’s always the argument, right?

And it’s silly, of course, not to mention untrue, and while not all quarterbacks are created equally, a quarterback good enough to play in a Super Bowl brings value. Just as Goff brought value to the Rams. Just as he is bringing value to the Lions.

A lot of it.

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Though until he gets back to a Super Bowl — and wins it — he’ll hear the kind of backhanded compliments he heard last week in Green Bay, when Ryan Fitzpatrick, a former NFL quarterback and current NFL analyst for Amazon Prime, said of Goff:

“Poor man’s Matt Ryan.”

Fitzpatrick said this during the network’s pregame show at Lambeau Field. It got back to Goff. After the Lions beat the Packers, Goff was invited onto the postgame set on the field.

“Hope it’s up to your standard,” Goff told Fitzpatrick, staring directly at him. “I didn’t know I was a poor man’s anything.”

Too sensitive?

Hardly. Goff had a right to defend his performance and call Fitzpatrick out on the insult. Fitzpatrick tried backtracking by saying he was kidding, and that Ryan was a helluva quarterback, which meant that any comparison, however modified, was a compliment.

During Ryan’s prime, he was a terrific quarterback, as Fitzpatrick said. But attaching “poor man’s” to any description never sounds like a joke. Hence, Goff’s response.

When asked about the comment this week back in Allen Park, Goff responded:

“Yeah, gave him a hard time. Ryan’s a good dude, but that’s it.”

Is it though? And, more importantly, should that be it?

Sure, Goff said his piece on the postgame set. And said even more with his play against Green Bay. Asked this week if he feels like he’s silenced some of the critics with his play last season and this, Goff said:

“Don’t care. Don’t care. There’s still going to be some and there will always be even if I’m playing great, if I’m playing poorly, there’ll always be haters and lovers and ignore them all and keep trying to get better.”

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Of course, he cares. It’s almost impossible not to care. Which is why Goff said something to Fitzpatrick.

Besides, it’s not about ignoring the “haters” as much as it’s about flushing the outside noise from within. But that has to be processed first. Sometimes, that process can turn doubt into energy, like corn into ethanol.

Michael Jordan famously remembered every slight he ever heard whether it was real or imagined. And if you think he didn’t care, check out his Hall of Fame induction speech, where he laid out his career in segments of who’d trolled him.

It sounds good to say you don’t care when someone’s criticized you. It sounds even better to say there will always be critics, and that it’s best to ignore them. I mean, sure it is. And if by ignoring them he meant not responding to them, then absolutely, that’s usually best.

Unless you’ve got your critic a few feet away and you each have mics. I’d argue it took some courage for Goff to clap back at Fitzpatrick, a character trait that he’s shown on the field since he’s been a Lion.

It's no accident that Dan Campbell has used the word “tough” to describe his quarterback at various times, an underrated part of Goff’s ability. It takes toughness to throw an interception on the first series of the game and come back and lead a touchdown drive, as Goff did against Green Bay. In fact, he’s led TD drives after all three of his picks this season.

Now, ask him about resiliency and the first thing he’ll tell you is that he’s got to take care of the ball better, that he’s got to stop putting the team in the position to where it has to follow a turnover with a touchdown drive.

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Fair enough. And another good answer, by the way: take ownership of the mistake, wash it, and send it back out clean.

Goff is playing the best football of his career, by metric and by sight. Every game, he makes a few throws that are quietly spectacular. As he did against Green Bay, when he whipped a pass to Sam LaPorta with a defensive back riding his shoulder.

LaPorta, the rookie tight end, drew praise for his run after the catch and for his stiff arm; the play gained 35 yards. But the replay from the camera behind Goff showed the near impossible angle he had, and the accuracy it required to squeeze the ball into the sliver of space.

Later in the game, Goff feathered a tear-dropper over the shoulder of Josh Reynolds for 26 yards, who also had a DB clinging to his pads. It was a gorgeous pass that grabbed the attention of the color analyst, and it should’ve.

Somehow, it remains easy to forget about the kind of passes Goff produces fairly frequently. Part of this is because he isn’t especially fast or athletic — comparatively — in the pocket or outside the pocket. Nor does he look athletic.

Nor is he especially outspoken or terribly charismatic, at least in the way his coach is; rarely do you see him smile, at least publicly.

He is steadfast and serious in front of a microphone or a camera, and his play on the field appears similar, which makes the kind of throw he made to LaPorta easier to forget. Because, let’s face it, how we view quarterbacks aren’t always about numbers or even Super Bowl wins.

Ryan is a good example of this. He is a better quarterback than his reputation. Goff is too, and he’s been playing like it for more than a year.

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

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Lions' Jared Goff does listen to critics, and that's good