For 17 years, Stafford wasn’t either.
Goff has 7 more years to do what Stafford finally did this year.
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Perhaps never by you. but Goff has been in that conversation before nationally. Despite the lazy narratives around him by people like you
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You’re kind of proving the opposite point though.
Nobody disputes that teams can win with Darnold, Nix, Purdy, Lawrence, etc. Football’s a team sport. The actual debate is whether you can win because of the QB when things aren’t perfect.
That “hold teams under 21, top-15 OL, decent weapons” formula basically admits the QB isn’t carrying much. That’s exactly why elite QBs matter - they reduce how many boxes you need checked.
Box stats are system-driven. They don’t capture off-script plays, pressure avoidance, defensive gravity, or how much margin for error a QB gives you when protection breaks down.
Allen losing a playoff game or Lawrence getting bounced doesn’t mean much. Great QBs lose in January all the time. The question is how much they dragged flawed rosters there in the first place.
Yes, you get the whole QB - warts included. But dismissing arm talent or escapability because teams haven’t maximized it yet confuses outcome with capability.
Teams can win with average QBs.
Teams contend because of elite ones.
That’s the difference people are talking about.
well, without adding any data, this is a pretty, subjective and vague. The great thing about Lyons posts is he always adds data.
Something you’re not registering is that one of Lyons main points is about flawed rosters. In particular defensive support and points allowed.
And to address your point about ‘dragging flawed rosters’ let’s consider the Lions in 2023. Let’s look at the final four teams in the Championship games: Ravens, Niners, Chiefs and Lions
Ravens had the number one defense in the league
Chiefs had the number two defense in the league
Niners had the number three defense in the league
Lions: Twenty second ranked
One of these things is not like the other…..One of these things just doesn’t belong
so the argument could be made that Jared Goff dragged a flawed roster to the brink of the Super Bowl. And if we remember that game more clearly, the biggest letdown was the gimme interception that our defense turned into a touchdown for the Niners.
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and… think about this for a minute
No other Conference Championship team in the last ten years has finished with a bottom-half defense. In every other season, teams that advanced to the conference title game had defenses ranked in the top 16, and most often much higher (top-10). Only Goff and the Lions got there with a bottom tier defense
So maybe you’re right after all - Sometimes a QB can drag a flawed roster to a championship game and the brink of the Superbowl
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The only thing on this thats accurate is the Chiefs
The Lions were 19th in TOTAL DEFENSE. The Cleveland Browns were the #1 TOTAL DEFENSE. The Chiefs were #2, Ravens #6 and 9ers #8
This year or the year Nutz is talking about?
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He’s talking about 2023
I’m aware, thus my question to you.
Which year was your post about.
2023
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You’re just proving the point .
“TOTAL DEFENSE” (yards allowed) is not, IMO the best standard for determining whether a defense is ‘good or bad’ — allowed scoring is. The objective of defense is to prevent points, not accumulate yardage aesthetics. That’s why every serious evaluation (points allowed, EPA, DVOA, success rate) prioritizes scoring outcomes, not raw yardage
In 2023:
-
Ravens: #1 in points allowed
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Chiefs: #2 in points allowed
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49ers: #3 in points allowed
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Lions: 23rd in points allowed
That’s not debatable..
But if you’d like, let’s just consider “TOTAL DEFENSE” Which looks way more important in all caps. Even then, 19th is still below average. You didn’t disprove the claim; you just changed the metric
And here’s the irony:
If you want to argue yards instead of points, all you’re really saying is Detroit gave up fewer empty yards but still gave up a lot of points — which actually makes Goff’s run more impressive, not less. A defense that bends but still breaks puts more pressure on the offense, not less.
So no — this doesn’t refute the argument.
It reinforces it.
Detroit reached the NFC Championship Game while being the only team in the final four without an elite scoring defense, and redefining defense mid-argument doesn’t change that.
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To be fair he may have trying to prove your argument not disprove it.
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Doesn’t matter what you think…that’s the way the NFL does it. You don’t make the rules and you cannot make up your own facts. It’s called TOTAL DEFENSE for a reason…it’s more to a defense than scoring. TDs can be all scored on SPTs or defensively…you score 35 points on 2 KO returns, a punt return, two pick sixes and a fumble recovery for a TD then you are not the #1 scoring offense are you?? That is an example of why they don’t measure it that way. We have had this conversation many times and you are still trying to push that narrative regardless of how wrong it is 
No he’s just wrong and he is making his point off of wrong information.
I really don’t have a horse in this argument will let you strain at the gnat.
You excel at it. 
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Say what? I wasn’t aware the NFL had a mandate on only ranking defenses a particular way. Are you talking about NFL.com’s default display order?
NFL.com initially sorts team defense by total yards allowed because it’s a simple, legacy box-score stat that’s easy for casual browsing. That doesn’t make it the authoritative measure of defensive quality — it’s just the first column the table happens to sort by before you apply filters.
That’s why the same page also lets you sort by:
• points allowed
• points per drive
• turnovers
• red-zone efficiency
And why every modern evaluative metric (EPA, DVOA, success rate) prioritizes scoring outcomes over raw yardage.
So yes — if you open NFL.com and don’t touch anything, you’ll see “total defense” first. But that’s a presentation choice, not a football truth. The league doesn’t decide who’s elite, who advances, or who wins championships by yardage totals — they decide it by points.
Which brings us back to the original point:
In 2023, three conference-championship teams had top-three scoring defenses. Detroit didn’t — and still made it there. That’s the context that matters.
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Again…it’s a reason why they call it and rank it by TOTAL DEFENSE!
You’re conflating offensive accounting with defensive evaluation, and that’s where this keeps going off the rails. The example you’re using — special-teams and defensive touchdowns inflating point totals — is precisely why scoring offense is separated by unit.
But scoring defense already accounts for that: it only includes points scored by the opponent, regardless of phase. team’s pick-sixes and return TDs are never counted against its defense.
So this isn’t some hidden flaw in the metric — it’s a problem the league solved decades ago. Switching to total yards because of a misunderstanding about how scoring defense works isn’t deeper analysis; it’s just changing stats to protect a conclusion you already decided on.
In any case, I’ll make it really clear right here right now that I’m talking about scoring defensive rankings
If you’d like, I’ll do a different analysis with DVOA