Detroit Lions quarterback Jared Goff moved up a spot in ESPN’s annual quarterback rankings based on the opinions of unnamed NFL executives, scouts and coaches, but that was hardly the biggest headline coming from the article.
Goff ranked at No. 9 on the list last year, and in 2025, he’s up to No. 8, according to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler. But that was also one spot higher than Philadelphia Eagles quarterback, Jalen Hurts, who landed at No. 9.
Hurts’ spot is up from last year, when he was an honorable mention. However, there were no shortage of fans who believed Goff shouldn’t be higher than Hurts after a Super Bowl campaign in Philadelphia last season.
“Comical. Guy wins a Super Bowl and still gets s— on,” one Eagles fan said.
“Hurts at 9 is disrespectful af,” another fan wrote.
“Hurts at 9 is why most of these executives/coaches end up getting fired,” one reply to Fowler’s post of the article on X said.
Can you make an argument for Hurts to be higher than Goff because of his Super Bowl ring?
Of course you can, and the fact that Goff hasn’t been able to get a legitimate Super Bowl contender over the hump further hurts his case, as does the fact he was a turnover machine in the playoff loss to the Washington Commanders.
However, if you look at it from a pure production standpoint, Goff has done way more than Hurts in recent years, partly because the Eagles lean on the run.
Granted, the Lions run the ball a ton, also, but had nearly 90 less carries and almost 100 more pass attempts than the Eagles in 2024, which means Goff is asked to do more in Detroit’s offense.
Hurts was also blessed with an elite defense backing him up, something Detroit did not have, especially after their unit was ravaged by injuries. If you give the Lions a defense the caliber of Philly’s, we might be having a different conversation.
Is it an open-and-shut case that Goff should be ranked higher than Hurts? Definitely not, but it’s not as outlandish as some make it seem.
