If you were annoyed by the way the Detroit Lions won Sunday, Jared Goff has a pretty simple response.
Get over it.
Detroit opened the 2026 season with a 31-30 overtime victory over the New Orleans Saints, but calling it pretty would be generous. The Lions built a 21-0 lead, watched all of it disappear, then needed an overtime touchdown and a failed Saints two-point conversion to finally escape Ford Field. Goff finished 26-of-39 for 206 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions, with both scores going to Amon-Ra St. Brown.
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The quarterback was not pretending Detroit played flawless football afterward. He also was not remotely interested in apologizing for winning.
Speaking during the Lions’ postgame press conference, Goff summed up the reality of NFL football rather nicely:
“Football’s a weird, hard game.”
“If you want to say we were one play better than them, fine. We were, and we got the W.”
“I’ve got a lot of respect for them and the way they played.”
That is probably the correct perspective.
There will be plenty for Dan Campbell and his staff to dislike when they watch the film.
Detroit allowed New Orleans to turn a three-touchdown deficit into overtime. Tyler Shough threw for 410 yards and three touchdowns, Chris Olave piled up 182 receiving yards, and the Lions needed every last second of a game that once appeared headed toward a comfortable victory. The Saints finished with 469 total yards to Detroit’s 369.
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None of that changes the standings.
Goff made that point even more directly:
“I don’t care how it happens, man.”
“If we’re up and they come back, or we’re down and we come back, it doesn’t matter.”
That mentality should sound familiar. After Detroit’s ugly Week 1 loss to Green Bay last season, Goff was similarly uninterested in the outside noise, something we covered when he fired back at critics following that defeat.
The circumstances are much better this time.
Instead of explaining away 0-1, Goff is defending 1-0.
I suspect he prefers this version.
Goff was not arguing that Detroit should feel wonderful about everything that happened Sunday.
He knows blowing out the Saints would have been more enjoyable. It also would have spared everyone in Michigan from spending the final hour of the afternoon wondering how a 21-0 lead had somehow turned into this mess.
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Goff put it this way:
“Of course we’d love to keep scoring and win 49-0. Of course.”
“But listen, it’s the NFL. This thing’s hard. Week one’s very hard, and we’re happy to get a win.”
That last sentence is the important one.
Week 1 produces weird results every year because teams are finally playing meaningful football after months of offseason work, training camp and preseason games that tell us only so much. The Lions certainly have issues to correct, particularly in a secondary that was shredded by Shough.
But Detroit also got 156 rushing yards and two touchdowns from Jahmyr Gibbs, two touchdown catches from St. Brown, five defensive sacks, three Saints turnovers and a game-winning overtime drive.
Ugly? Sure.
Worth less in the standings? Not even a little.
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Detroit does not have much time to enjoy this one anyway.
In Week 2, the Lions travel to Buffalo for Thursday Night Football on Sept. 17 at 8:15 p.m. ET. It is exactly the kind of matchup that will quickly tell us whether Sunday’s problems were merely Week 1 sloppiness or something worth worrying about.
Goff has spent the offseason making it clear that Detroit expects more after finishing fourth in the NFC North last season. His blunt assessment of the Lions’ disappointing 2025 season established that standard months ago.
So nobody inside Allen Park should be satisfied with how Sunday unfolded.
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They should, however, be satisfied with the only number that matters tonight.
1-0.
