Eric WoodyardDec 13, 2025, 06:00 AM ETCloseEric Woodyard covers the Detroit Lions for ESPN. He joined ESPN in September 2019 as an NBA reporter dedicated to the Midwest region before switching to his current role in April 2021. The Flint, Mich. native is a graduate of Western Michigan University and has authored/co-authored three books: “Wasted,” “Ethan’s Talent Search” and “All In: The Kelvin Torbert Story”. He is a proud parent of one son, Ethan.Follow on X
Jared Goff ready for matchup with former team (0:45)Eric Woodyard reports on Jared Goff’s mindset ahead of a showdown with the Rams. (0:45)
Shortly afterward, the classic “da-da-da, da-da-da” alert notification from ESPN landed on the phones of the pals he had left behind with breaking news that Goff, who had just completed his fifth NFL season, had been traded from the Los Angeles Rams to the Detroit Lions for veteran quarterback Matthew Stafford. The deal marked the first direct swap of former No. 1 picks in NFL history.
Prior to the deal, Goff had experienced an up-and-down career with the Rams. Selected No. 1 out of Cal in 2016, Goff reached consecutive Pro Bowls in 2017 and 2018 and led Los Angeles to an appearance in Super Bowl LIII following the 2018 regular season. But after a poor performance in the 13-3 Super Bowl loss to the New England Patriots, the Rams were looking for a change at the position two years later.
They found a trade partner in Detroit, which was looking to rebuild after hiring Campbell and general manager Brad Holmes to usher in a new era for the franchise. To lead the change, they chose Goff, whom Holmes — the Rams’ former director of college scouting — had known from their time together in L.A.
According to his close friends, family members and former coaches, Goff’s rebound in Detroit was not unexpected. It’s the result of a resilience and toughness that’s been with him since childhood.
But Goff can do more than bounce back from adversity. He’s also a compassionate leader who orchestrated a touching surprise for a longtime Lions security guard’s retirement, a loyal friend who makes those around him feel like family, and, at one point, a tireless high school basketball player whose player comp, friends say, was “a poor man’s Dennis Rodman.”
When the Lions visit the Rams at SoFi Stadium on Sunday (4:25 p.m. ET, Fox) — Goff’s fourth time playing his former team since the trade — the stakes will be high. The Lions (8-5) enter Week 15 with a 55% chance to make the playoffs, per ESPN Analytics. Those odds improve to 73% with a victory but drop to 42% with a loss.
“He’s tough, man. This whole transition wasn’t for everybody. It was a hard deal,” said his father, Jerry Goff, a former Major League Baseball catcher. “It was not easy and not everybody can do it, and that’s what we’re so proud of is what he’s been able to do with a couple different franchises, and he kind of did it in college to a certain extent.
“… For him to bring this city to relevance, he loves Detroit, and he loves the fans. He loves being here and it will always be special to his heart for sure.”
It’s an unspoken rule within the group chat of Goff and his close childhood friends Robbie Terheyden, Croteau and Patrick Conroy.
“It got so competitive and intense that we just had to say that we’re never playing it again,” Croteau said, laughing.
“I think Nancy heard how loud we were,” Croteau said. “Nancy came out and was like, ‘Yeah, you guys should probably stop.’ Like, she agreed.”
In pool basketball, there’s no rules to the game. There’s no dribbling. So hard fouls were exchanged and the next thing you know, things got way too intense among the quartet of buddies, particularly between Goff and Croteau, but they were back to normal once the situation deescalated.
Ever since Croteau could remember, Goff has always been competitive at everything. Growing up in the same town, they initially met as fourth-grade teammates for the St. Anthony’s CYO basketball team before Croteau moved in the same neighborhood as Goff during eighth grade.
“We always played sports growing up, so I knew who he was because he would always beat me,” said Croteau, who played tight end at Boston College.
Their bond strengthened in high school at Marin Catholic in Kentfield, California, where they continued to play sports together, including varsity football and baseball.
Terheyden also played high school football while Conroy was a basketball star at Marin Catholic. He walked on for hoops at the University of Nevada, Reno.
“We had a core kind of friend group. But he was always the most competitive one I would say. He’s probably the most competitive person I’ve ever met in my life, and I’ve met a lot of competitive people,” Croteau said. “He knows how to have fun and lighten a scenario by playing a prank.
Everyone knew that baseball and football were his top sports, but he also excelled on the freshman team in hoops.
However, in his first year as head coach of the boys’ varsity basketball team, Mike Saia initially assigned Goff to play junior varsity during summer league action.
“Going into it, I just got hired and I didn’t quite figure out the landscape,” Saia said. “And then that summer, I went to a JV game, because I put him on JV, and watched him play and said, ‘This kid needs to come with us and be on the varsity.'”
In fact, he spent much of his time training for baseball and football, so he barely worked at basketball. But Saia was impressed by his tenacity and athleticism. As a gangly, 6-foot-3, 165-pounder at the time, Saia envisioned Goff playing somewhat of a utility role with his hardwood toughness and knack for doing the dirty work.
“I could say kind of a poor man’s Rodman. Really, the only way offensively he was gonna touch the ball was to go get a rebound,” Saia said. “We had capable ball handlers, capable scorers. Capable guys you could slot in to do the basketball stuff, but to do the winning stuff and to do the dirty stuff, that’s where Jared got in and got some minutes.”
For Croteau, who began shooting hoops with Goff as early as elementary, he agrees with the Rodman comparison wholeheartedly.
“He was. That’s actually a good comp. He was a ball hawk,” Croteau said. “He just knew where to be for rebounds. He was aggressive. But I don’t know if he has the same off-the-court qualities as Dennis Rodman.”
“Rodman and Draymond Green are similar, though. But I was a [power forward]. I was not a scorer,” Goff said. “But I was really good on defense, and I was a good rebounder, and I was a good piece of the team, but I was definitely not leading the team in scoring.
“I would score a few points a game and maybe I’d get 10. A few layups, but I was a hustle guy 100 percent.”
Goff would emerge as the seventh or eighth man for a Wolverines team that finished 20-12 during the 2010-11 season, with an 11-5 mark in league play as he wore No. 2.
Conroy, his close friend, was the second-leading scorer as a sophomore that season, averaging 8.6 points, while Goff averaged 2.4 points, according to MaxPreps, but was third on the team in rebounds (4.2) and blocks per game (0.4) while also logging 1.0 steals in 30 games played during that lone basketball season on varsity.
“We probably weren’t so sophisticated back then to look at plus-minus but I’ve gotta get his plus-minus was always good when he got in the game,” Saia said.
After the year, Saia tried to persuade Goff to return to the hardwood, but he began to specialize in football, where he became a four-star recruit and All-American quarterback who signed to play at Cal.
“He became a huge fan at the basketball games, his junior and senior year. Rooting on his buddies,” Saia said. “He was very visible, very vocal and was still part of the program even though he wasn’t playing.”
Franklin, Cal’s newly hired offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, was blown away by Goff’s toughness early on, despite being hit often against Madison’s defense in a California state championship contest.
“We’ve got a special guy,” Franklin told Dykes. “This guy has got the ‘it’ factor. He played the last play of the game as he did the first play of the game. He was physically tough.”
Marin Catholic would lose to Madison 38-35, and Goff would end his prep career with a 39-4 overall record over three varsity seasons. He was listed 34th among ESPN’s top players in his region and ranked No. 20 nationally within his position, for the class of 2013.
Goff would become the first quarterback in Cal history to start as a true freshman when he suited up in Week 1 against Northwestern on Aug. 31, 2013.
That’s no small feat as Cal has produced some top quarterbacks who were high draft picks, including four-time MVP Aaron Rodgers [24th pick in 2005], Steve Bartkowski (No. 1 in 1975), Craig Morton (No. 5 in 1965), Rich Campbell (No. 6 in 1981) and Kyle Boller (No. 19 in 2003).
“Ohio State had Joey Bosa, I mean this is a real Ohio State team. And he starts, we get killed, he gets hit no telling how many times in the game and never blinked, never flinched,” Dykes said. “Kind of midway through the third quarter, I just remember thinking, ‘Man, this guy just keeps standing in there, keeps throwing the football, keeps getting knocked down and gets right back up.’ And that’s just who he is.”
Goff would grow from that 1-11 experience. He finished 5-7 as a sophomore in 2014 then 8-5 as a junior in 2015, ending a career in which he set 26 school records — including career passing yards (12,220) and touchdown passes (96) — before becoming the No. 1 pick by the Rams in 2016. But those tough losses, particularly against Ohio State, helped shape his resiliency.
“We ended up winning one game that year so you can imagine where we were at, but [Ohio State linebacker] Ryan Shazier was the best football player I’ve ever seen in my life in that game, and I was like, ‘holy s—,'” Goff said. “And they beat us, but we scored on them, so offensively we’re like, ‘If that’s a top-5 team in the country, we can score on anybody.’
“There was a lot of getting hit, bouncing back and we scored some touchdowns late, kind of showed some resilience but it was definitely a moral victory because we did get our ass kicked.”