Detroit Lions quarterback Jared Goff isn’t concerning himself with the outside noise ahead of Sunday’s NFC Championship Game against the San Francisco 49ers.
One prominent sports talk show host in particular isn’t giving Detroit much of a shot against San Francisco. That would be Skip Bayless, who appears on FS1‘s “Undisputed.” Moments after the Lions defeated the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the Divisional Round this past Sunday, Bayless took to X to congratulate the Lions — well, sort of.
“Congrats, Lions,” Bayless wrote. “You have won the right to get blown out at San Francisco. But hey, great year.”
Goff, speaking with Doug Karsch and Scott Anderson on 97.1 The Ticket Tuesday, talked about if he puts any stock into bulletin material. Goff said it depends, leading to the hosts bringing up Bayless’ tweet. But once the hosts mentioned Bayless’ name, Goff shut the question down and took aim at the 72-year-old.
“Nah, I don’t care about anything he says,” Goff said. “Anything those guys say on daytime TV, you can skip over that.”
Lions, Jared Goff playing underdog against 49ers
Being counted out is nothing new for the Lions and their quarterback, who notably made his way to the Motor City after the Los Angeles Rams decided he wasn’t the man to put them over the top. Los Angeles ultimately was proven right, but now it’s Goff’s turn to prove he can win a Super Bowl. And in order to get there for the second time in his career, he and the Lions must go into Levi’s Stadium and walk out with a victory.
That’ll be no easy task, as the 49ers own the league’s No. 1 scoring offense and No. 3 scoring defense. They field a league-leading nine Pro Bowlers, including running back Christian McCaffrey, one of the NFL MVP favorites. Yes, Detroit may be the underdog, but that doesn’t change their expectations.
“I don’t want to say this arrogantly, but we expected to win the first game,” Goff said. “We expected to win this game. Now we get to go to a game we expected to be in against a really good team at their place. We’re going to come into it expecting to win.”
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