Michael David Smith ,
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Jared Goff and Baker Mayfield were both first overall picks in the NFL draft. And as expected, both have developed into elite players. Just not for the teams that drafted them.
Goff and Mayfield are the NFL’s top two passers in both yards and touchdowns over the last three seasons.
Since the start of the 2023 season, Goff is first in the NFL with 10,594 passing yards. Mayfield is second with 10,083 passing yards. And over that same time period, Goff and Mayfield are tied for first in the NFL with 81 touchdown passes.
Goff was drafted first overall by the Rams in 2016 and played very well at times, but by the end of the 2020 season he was largely being dismissed as a disappointment, and the Rams included him along with two first-round picks in the trade that got them Matthew Stafford from the Lions. That trade will always be viewed as a success for the Rams given that Stafford led them to a championship in his first season, but it’s increasingly looking like an even bigger success for the Lions, as Goff has led them to more team success than Stafford ever did, and the two first-round picks (both of which were traded) ultimately yielded two of the Lions’ best offensive playmakers, Jameson Williams and Jahmyr Gibbs.
But while Goff moving from the Rams to the Lions can be viewed as a success for both teams, Mayfield leaving the Browns was nothing but a disaster in Cleveland, where they mortgaged the future of the franchise for Deshaun Watson only to watch Mayfield, their first overall pick in 2018, become a much better quarterback than Watson. After brief stints with the Panthers and Rams, Mayfield has become one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL with the Buccaneers.
Goff and Mayfield are two of the best quarterbacks in the NFL, and they’ll square off in Detroit on Monday night in a game that has major playoff implications for both the Lions and the Bucs.
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