Detroit Lions quarterback Jared Goff went on the Willbo Trading Cards podcast this week and took a bit of a shot at Detroit sports media.
"I have this like, I probably need to drop it pretty soon here because I'm hopefully gonna be in Detroit for a long time, but I have this thing with our local media where like they almost like relish in negativity at times. And maybe that's what gets clicked and that's what sells, but it's no longer what they need to live in. Like, hey guys, we have a good team. We've had success. We can be happy about that we can celebrate that and not have to write about how we're constantly the underdog. No, teams are gonna be gunning for us now. We won the divsion and all that. I'm probably overthinking it in my head and it's the chip on my shoulder and the competitor in me."
The answer was in reference to Goff's funny response to a reporter during the playoffs when he pointed out that while the 49ers have All-Pro's on their team, the Lions do as well.
There is some understanding of what Goff is talking about. At some point we have to move past the idea that this team has been one of the worst franchises in sports history. They've displayed that they aren't that team anymore and there is no reason at all to think that their success in 2022 and 2023 is some sort of fluke. The Lions are the real deal.
I will push back a bit because it hasn't totally been my experience as a member of the Lions media that there has been a lot of negativity during Goff's time in Detroit. Certainly there were a lot of questions to Goff regarding the Lions past early on in his tenure, but there's been a lot of positivity surrounding the Lions from the media's end this year.
I would make the argument that local Lions media kept fans sane during times when they wanted to revert to the Same Old Lions mantra that many of them have been turning to for years. Especially after the Lions loss to the Bears where many fans felt the team was going to regress and not win the division or make the playoffs. I know that I was getting dogged a lot by Lions fans during that tie when I was trying to assure them that a lot of good teams go through lulls.
I would also point out that Lions media killed it in their response to the fiasco at the Cowboys game when each writer collectively fought back against the NFL's dumb rhetoric surrounding reporting as eligible and how the official clearly made the wrong call.
Lastly, I think there's often convergence of media in which Detroit media sort of get's wrapped up with national media. A good example would be national media's response to the Lions draft haul from the 2023 NFL draft. I don't think their response was shared by local media. There were questions about positional value, but most local media fully acknowledged how good the players were that the Lions drafted.
With that said, I fully agree that it's time to stop living in the past and it's time to stop comparing the Lions to Lions teams of the past. But it is fair to still have criticism where it's due.
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