When Baker Mayfield crumbled to the ground, clutching his thumb and screaming in pain in the fourth quarter of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ loss to the Minnesota Vikings, it marked the sixth starting quarterback to go down with injury in the season’s first three weeks.
Jaxson Dart (knee), Jayden Daniels (elbow), Caleb Williams (hamstring), Kyler Murray (concussion) and Sam Darnold (glute) all have suffered injuries that caused them to miss games, and while only Dart is out for the season, nearly 20% of the NFL will have started a backup QB by the first week of October.
Carnage at the game’s most prominent and important position is unavoidable, no matter how much the league tries to protect its top breadwinners.
Some of the greatest quarterbacks of all
time, from Tom Brady to Joe Montana to Dan Marino, missed most or all of a season at one point in their careers due to injury.
All that makes Detroit Lions quarterback Jared Goff’s ironman streak more impressive.
Goff will make his 73rd straight start this week when the Lions visit the Carolina Panthers on Sunday Night Football.
He hasn’t missed a game since Week 17 of the 2021 season, when he sat out a January loss to the Seattle Seahawks with a knee injury. And his current mark of 72 straight starts is the second-longest active streak among quarterbacks.
Josh Allen of the Buffalo Bills has made 126 straight starts, including a game that was suspended and never finished.
“I do take a lot of pride in that, being on the field,” Goff said Wednesday, Sept. 30. “I take a lot less of a beating than all these other guys out there and for them to fight and be on the field, I owe them the same thing for me to make sure my body’s ready.”
Goff has dealt with a handful of minor injuries in his career.
He missed two games with a knee injury and a third with a strained oblique in his first season with the Lions in 2021, and the year before, in his final season with the Los Angeles Rams, he missed two games with a broken thumb that also limited him in the playoffs.
But he’s also shown remarkable toughness and durability.
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“Look, he plays through things, too, now,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said. “That's the other thing, and I guess that plays into [his] toughness. There’s things that he gets that people don't even know about that he goes out there and plays and he's good. But I mean, during the week, it's not like he feels good. But he doesn't complain about it, he doesn't miss practice. He's going to be out there because he's our captain, he's our leader.”
Goff said his durability starts with the intense offseason work he puts in on his body.
He follows a strict diet he once said was rich in lean meats and focuses his training on flexibility and lower-body and core strength.
“I know I’m not the most physically cut up, I guess would be the word,” Goff said. “I don’t look like [Amon-Ra] St. Brown with my shirt off, but I do try to do my best to do the things that I think keep you healthy.”
Goff’s playing style also contributes to his sturdiness.
Last year, Goff was sacked a career-high 38 times, but as a true pocket quarterback whose advanced processing skills help him get rid of the ball quickly, he doesn’t subject his body to the type of open-field hits that have contributed to this year’s rash of injuries.
Mayfield was injured when he scrambled to avoid a sack and hit his throwing hand hit on an opposing defender. And Williams pulled his hamstring and Murray suffered his brain injury on rushing plays.
Goff said he’s not sure why so many quarterbacks have gone down already this year with serious injuries.
“I think it just happens early in the year sometimes, guys haven’t been hit in a while,” he said. “I don’t know.”
Whatever the case, Campbell is counting his blessings he has a healthy quarterback.
“He’s durable, he’s tough, he's resilient,” Campbell said. “And you've got to be tough at that position. And our guy is. It says a ton.”
Dave Birkett covers the Lions for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Bluesky, X and Instagram at @davebirkett.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: As QB injuries mount, Lions' Jared Goff is one of NFL's premier ironmen
