It's a hard question to answer, which is good: how does the Lions offense get better? They were one of only two teams in the NFL last year to rank in the top five in both passing and rushing. The other was the team that ended their season. They were a top-five unit in points and yards for the second year in a row, over which time their quarterback has completed more passes for more yards than everyone in the NFL not named Patrick Mahomes.
Where can Jared Goff and Co. improve?
"Off the top of my head, personally, the deep ball and hitting those shots more often," Goff said Wednesday on Fox 2 Detroit after the first practice of training camp. "That’s an easy one."
And that's exactly how Goff made it look on one of his first throws in team drills, hitting Jameson Williams in stride on a 50-yard bomb as Williams left two defenders in the dust and waltzed into the end zone.
"We gotta do it when it matters in the game, but yeah, we’re getting better at it," said Goff. "But that’s the first one I can think of for me personally."
It's an honest self-assessment. And an important area of growth for Goff as the Lions prepare to make Williams one of their featured receivers. He has the speed to make Detroit's passing attack more vertical, and the entire offense more dangerous.
On deep throws last season, categorized by Pro Football Focus as targets that travel at least 20 yards in the air, Goff had a passer rating of 95.8 -- better than some might have expected, but not among the elite. That ranked 12th in the NFL. He had a rating of 120.9 on intermediate throws and 102.8 on short throws, which both ranked sixth.
The top five quarterbacks on deep throws were C.J. Stroud, Brock Purdy, Dak Prescott, Matthew Stafford and Trevor Lawrence, who combined on such throws for 45 touchdowns to six picks. Goff had five touchdowns to four picks. He might not throw the prettiest ball in the NFL, but he typically gets it where it needs to go.
If he can sharpen the deep shots this season, the Lions can unlock maybe the last dimension of their offense.
"And then just our overall consistency, just being better," said Goff, who hit a brief rut around Thanksgiving before finding his stride again down the stretch. "Throughout the year, we had times we were really good and we had times where we weren’t so good, so how do we fight those lulls?"
It's hard to overstate Williams' importance to this offense. Josh Reynolds was a reliable No. 2 receiver the last two seasons, and Detroit's best deep threat. He led the team last year in yards per catch. Almost all of his catches -- 80 percent of them, to be exact -- went for first downs. His departure looms large.
"That was eye-opening during the self-scout period, to be honest with you," offensive coordinator Ben Johnson said this spring. "He was an explosive play waiting to happen. A number of his receptions were big plays for us. Something we've talked about with the skill group, those opportunities go elsewhere now and we need guys to step up and rise to the occasion just like he did."
Goff was terrific in the playoffs, but again mediocre going deep. His season-long struggles in this regard owed partly to personnel. His most explosive downfield weapon didn't play until Week 5 and didn't become a central piece of the passing game until much later in the season. This year, Williams is hitting the ground running.
It's on Goff to keep hitting him in stride.
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