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TEN
NYGJared Goff (QB, DET) — 2026 evaluation
Verdict — FADE (medium confidence)
Goff is the system's definitional pocket volume passer (qb.md §10) being drafted at QB10 (ADP 90.1, round 8) — squarely in the QB7–12 "dead zone": starter cost without positional edge. Why the market is wrong: it is paying for three straight top-10 finishes produced by an environment that no longer exists — Ben Johnson's offense, then a 37.6 att/gm back-half volume spike under Dan Campbell's play-calling — while 2026 brings a run-lean, heavy-personnel new caller (Drew Petzing), a rebuilt O-line (31st in PBWR last year, three new starting spots incl. a rookie R1 RT), and a team profile stability rating of low. With 45 rushing yards and 0 rush TDs in 2025, Goff has no floor edge: his margin over QB12 in league scoring last year was 1.3 pts/gm, and Stafford (100.9), Caleb Williams (106.3), and Mayfield (120.3) — 2025's QB3, QB5, and QB12 — cost 1–3 rounds less. Fine player, wrong price: only draft at a round-plus discount (pick ~105+).
Bull case
- Volume + elite weapons survive the transition. 578 attempts in 2025, only ~79 targets vacated, and Petzing fed his best pass-catcher a league-leading 27.4% target share in ARI — with St. Brown/Williams/LaPorta/Gibbs, the YPA and completion base is top-5-caliber infrastructure, and OTA reporting has Petzing building a downfield/PA install Goff publicly praised (ESPN/A to Z Sports, June 2026).
- The QB-owned metrics are genuinely strong and portable: +0.17 EPA/dropback, 1.56% TWP (elite), 19% pressure-to-sack despite the NFL's 31st pass-blocking line. He wrings efficiency out of bad protection; if the rebuilt OL merely reaches average, 2024-style efficiency (+0.30 EPA/db, +5.1 CPOE) is the recovery case.
- Highest-certainty floor in his ADP band: 17/17 games two straight years, zero benching risk, three straight top-10 fantasy seasons (QB6 2024, QB9 2025 in this scoring). If the eval's volume trim is wrong, the ceiling case (~322 ≈ QB5) comes at a round-8 price.
Bear case
- Zero rushing in a 4pt-pass-TD world. 19 carries, 45 yards, 0 rush TDs (2025) — every point arrives through the lowest-value scoring channel. His full-season edge over QB12 in 2025 was 22 points (1.3/gm); one TD-rate wobble and he *is* replacement level, which streams for free in a 12-team 1QB league.
- The price pays for a dead environment. The QB9 finish was carried by a 37.6 att/gm back half under a play-caller (Campbell) who handed the job to a run-lean, 12/13-personnel OC whose two healthy-team seasons were "run-first"; team profile stability is LOW and projects ~33 att/gm with year-1 install drag. TD rate (5.9–6.9% the last two years) regresses toward ~5% on fewer attempts with the goal line belonging to Gibbs.
- The OL got worse before it got better. A 31st-PBWR unit lost its LT and C and now starts a rookie R1 at RT, a new C, a contested LG, and Sewell on a new side — behind it, a statuesque 31-year-old coming off a career-high 38 sacks and a CPOE that already fell from +5.1 to +1.6. Early-season pressure spikes hit exactly the deep/PA efficiency the bull case requires.
Projection & comps
Bottom-up, league scoring (4pt pass TD, −1 INT, 0.1 rush yd, −2 fum lost), 17 games:
| Component | Floor (p20) | Median (p50) | Ceiling (p80) | Method |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pass attempts | 544 (32.0/gm) | 555 (32.6/gm) | 585 (34.4/gm) | Team profile: 63.5 plays/gm × ~56% dropback ≈ 33 att/gm (Petzing run-lean prior + win total 10.5 positive script, vs DET 2025 34.0/gm) |
| Pass yards (YPA) | 3,971 (7.3) | 4,274 (7.7) | 4,680 (8.0) | 2024–25 YPA 8.59/7.90 (nflverse), trimmed for OL rebuild + year-1 install drag |
| Pass TD | 25 (4.7%) | 29 (5.3%) | 35 (6.0%) | Passing xTD UNVERIFIED (no provider table); anchored instead to regressed TD rate — Goff DET-era 5.9–6.9% (2024–25) blended toward league mean, goal-line work stays with Gibbs (13 rush TD 2025) |
| INT | 12 | 11 | 9 | From TWP: 9 int-worthy throws / 578 att = 1.56% (FTN 2025); 2.97% in 2024 → project ~2.0% |
| Rushing | 40 yds, 0 TD | 50 yds, ~0.5 xTD | 60 yds, 1 TD | 19 car/45 yds/0 TD 2025; 35/56/0 2024 (nflverse, incl. kneels) — no designed role |
| Fumbles lost | 4 | 3 | 3 | 5 lost in 2025 (3 sack + 2 rush, nflverse weekly) — regress down |
| Points | 243 | 278 | 322 |
Median 278 ≈ QB11–12 in 2025's league-scoring table; floor ≈ QB14; ceiling ≈ QB5–7. Games risk: low — 17/17 games in both 2024 and 2025 (nflverse), zero rushing exposure, no injury designation (Sleeper, 2026-07-07).
Comps (from this repo's computed league-scoring QB tables, weekly.csv, calc'd 2026-07-07 — low-rush volume pocket passers):
- Jared Goff 2025 — 305.1 (QB9, 17.9/gm): the "environment transition goes fine" case
- Dak Prescott 2025 — 323.8 (QB6): ceiling case
- Sam Darnold 2024 — 320.0 (QB9): elite-weapons pocket passer, ceiling-adjacent
- Justin Herbert 2024 — 288.4 (QB12): median case
- Geno Smith 2024 — 281.0 (QB13): volume without environment — the floor case
External sanity check: data/projections/ does not exist (no provider projections cached). Web consensus (RotoBaller, Fantasy Life, SI — June–July 2026) frames Goff as a "safe top-10 / sleeper value"; this eval's median sits 1–3 spots lower on the Petzing volume trim, install drag, and OL risk — disagreement noted deliberately.
Usage profile — opportunity core (qb.md §2)
All 2025 REG, nflverse pulled 2026-07-07 unless noted. FTN/participation figures are DET-team-level joins; Goff took 578 of DET's 580 QB attempts, so team ≈ Goff.
| Metric | 2024 | 2025 | Band | Read |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rush att/gm | 2.1 (35) | 1.1 (19, incl. kneels) | Concern (<2.5) | No rushing component exists |
| Designed rush rate | ~0% | ~0% | Concern | DET team QB sneaks: 6 (2024), 4 (2025) (FTN); designed/scramble split UNVERIFIED but the residue is kneels + rare scrambles |
| Scramble rate | UNVERIFIED | UNVERIFIED | Low | Not in derived tables; 45 total rush yds bounds it near zero |
| Rush yds/gm | 3.3 | 2.6 | Concern (<10) | Worst-case Konami profile |
| RZ rush share / inside-5 carries | ~0 / ≤6 sneaks | ~0 / ≤4 sneaks | Concern | 0 rush TD in consecutive seasons; rushing xTD ≈ 0.5 |
| Dropbacks/gm (att+sacks) | 33.5 | 36.2 | Good | Volume is real |
| Pass att/gm | 31.7 | 34.0 | Good–high | 578 attempts led his own DET era |
| Team PROE | UNVERIFIED (DET pass rate 54.5%) | UNVERIFIED (DET pass rate 59.7%) | — | 2025 rate void under Petzing; his ARI 2023–24 stops were "run-first" (ETR via team profile) → 2026 lean negative |
| xFP /gm | UNVERIFIED (provider) | UNVERIFIED — actual 17.9/gm (QB9) | QB1/2 fringe | No provider xFP cached; actual points used as weak proxy, flagged |
Late-season split that matters (qb.md §2): under Morton (Wks 1–9) Goff averaged 30.0 att/gm and a 7.1% TD rate; after Campbell took play-calling (Wks 10–18), 37.6 att/gm at 5.0% (nflverse weekly, calc'd 2026-07-07). The QB9 finish leaned on that back-half volume — and both callers are gone. The 2026 caller's prior is the opposite direction.
Efficiency & talent signal (qb.md §5)
| Metric | 2024 | 2025 | Band | Read |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EPA/dropback (passing EPA ÷ att+sacks, nflverse weekly) | +0.296 | +0.173 | Elite → Good | Real, QB-owned, travels to the new scheme — but note the year-over-year decline |
| CPOE (NGS) | +5.05 | +1.58 | Elite → Good | Sticky trait; the 2025 fade tracked the OL decline post-Ragnow |
| TWP (FTN int-worthy/att) | 2.97% | 1.56% | Good → Elite | 8 INTs vs 9 int-worthy in 2025 — clean, aligned ledger; no turnover-luck edge to buy in either direction. Corroborated: PFF charted 13 TWP on 623 dropbacks ≈ 2.1% (PFF via web, 2026-07-07) |
| Pressure-to-sack (sacks ÷ team pressures, participation) | 17.7% (31/175) | 19.2% (38/198) | Good (high end) | Career-high 38 sacks; behind a 31st-PBWR line this creeps toward the >24% concern zone |
| aDOT (NGS intended air yds) | 6.83 | 6.80 | Low-Good boundary | Checkdown-adjacent environment; yardage is completion-volume-driven |
| Deep-ball rate (20+ air yds) | UNVERIFIED | UNVERIFIED | — | Air-yards column empty in cached participation table; NGS aggressiveness 11.5% → 12.5% is a tight-window proxy, not a deep-rate stat |
| Play-action rate | 26.0%-band | 25.2% (team) | Good | Play-caller-owned; Petzing's ARI 2025 = 22.5% (FTN) — mild trim, but beat reporting says PA/boot is central to the Goff install (A to Z Sports/heavy.com, June 2026) |
QB-owned traits (CPOE, TWP, pressure-to-sack) carry into 2026 and are genuinely good. Everything environment-owned — YPA 7.9, TD rate 5.9%, PA rate, the 34 att/gm — must be re-derived under Petzing, and the re-derivation points down.
Context (cites data/team-profiles/DET.md, built 2026-07-07)
- Play-caller: Drew Petzing, first-year OC, presumed caller (Fowler/ESPN expectation; OTA coverage describes "Petzing's offense" — no contradiction as of 2026-07-07). Residual risk Campbell takes plays back. Petzing's only calling stop (ARI 2023–25) was run-lean and 12/13-personnel-heavy (4.92 ypc, 2nd in NFL over the span); ARI 2025's 69.9% raw pass rate was a garbage-script artifact of a bad team, not intent. His No. 1 read was his TE (McBride 27.4% TS, NFL target leader 2025) — good for LaPorta, neutral-to-negative for Goff's raw attempt count on a 10.5-win-total team.
- Scheme fit: West-coast/Shanahan-adjacent, PA/RPO from condensed heavy sets, "wants to push the ball downfield" (A to Z Sports, June 2026). Goff has always been excellent in structured PA systems — the fit is fine; the *volume* is the issue.
- O-line: 56% PBWR (31st, 2025); Decker and Glasgow gone; 2026 five = Sewell flipping to LT, contested LG, FA C Cade Mays, Ratledge, rookie R1 (#17) Blake Miller at RT. Team profile projects early-season pressure spikes and caps deep-aDOT efficiency Weeks 1–4. Goff's 38 sacks were a career high behind the *old* line.
- Weapons/continuity: elite and mostly intact — St. Brown (172 tgt, 31.3% TS), Williams (1,117 yds), Gibbs, LaPorta (health trending toward camp). Only ~79 targets vacated (Montgomery/Raymond/TE depth) — far below the 40% continuity red line, so efficiency carryover is believable (qb.md §4). This is the strongest thing on Goff's side.
- Script: Vegas win total 10.5 (DK/BetMGM, early July 2026) → positive script, leading teams run; profile projects ~63.5 plays/gm, ~56% dropback rate → ~33 att/gm, down from 34.0 and far below the Campbell-called 37.6.
- Job security: absolute — $212M through 2028, backup is Teddy Bridgewater. Benching risk none.
Tripwires (re-run this eval if any fire)
- Play-calling confirmed for Campbell, not Petzing, in preseason → volume assumption void (Campbell's 9-game 2025 sample was 37.6 att/gm — bullish flip risk).
- ADP drifts past ~105–110 (QB13+, round 9) → FADE becomes HOLD/TARGET at the discount this eval demands; ADP *rises* past ~78 (round 7) → hard fade.
- Camp/preseason shows pass-heavy neutral tendencies under Petzing (neutral pass rate ≥58% or PROE-positive reporting) → run-lean prior is wrong; re-project attempts up.
- LaPorta setback or St. Brown/Williams injury → efficiency base drops; also watch the LG/RT battles — a lost camp for Miller/Mays extends the pressure-spike window.
- League settings confirmed as 6pt pass TD or superflex → re-verdict immediately (HOLD in 6pt; solid QB2 value in SF).
Sources
data/stats/2025/&data/stats/2024/— passing.csv, rushing.csv, weekly.csv, ngs_passing.csv, pbp_summary.csv, ftn_charting.csv, participation.csv (nflverse via nflreadpy, pulled 2026-07-07). Derived: EPA/(att+sack), league-scoring QB ranks, Morton/Campbell split, FTN int-worthy/PA/sneaks, participation pressures — computed 2026-07-07.data/adp/adp_ffc_2026-07-07.csv— ADP 90.1 overall, QB10 (FantasyFootballCalculator PPR mocks, 2026-07-07). 1QB ADP, matching assumed 1QB format.data/raw/sleeper/players_2026-07-07.json— age 31 (DOB 1994-10-14), 10 yrs exp, Active, no injury status.data/team-profiles/DET.md(built 2026-07-07) — Petzing hire/tendencies, OL rebuild, depth chart, vacated targets, win total 10.5, plays/pass-rate projection, Bridgewater QB2.- Web (June–July 2026): A to Z Sports / Yardbarker OTA takeaways (Petzing install, downfield emphasis, Kafka involvement); heavy.com (Goff on Petzing transition); RotoBaller / Fantasy Life / SI (market framing: "safe top-10," "sleeper value"); sidelionreport (Petzing–Goff fit). Searched 2026-07-07.
- PFF player page (via web search, 2026-07-07): 2025 — 77.7 overall grade (12th of 43 qualified QBs), 13 TWP / 16 BTT on 623 dropbacks, aDOT 7.0, avg time-to-throw 2.57s, sack rate 6.1% (40th). PlayerProfiler (fetched 2026-07-07): 17.9 FPPG, #13 QB — corroborates repo-computed rank.
- UNVERIFIED (flagged inline): passing/rushing xTD (no provider table), PROE (both seasons), designed-vs-scramble split, deep-ball attempt rate, provider xFP, PFR pressure rate allowed.
- League scoring ASSUMED: full PPR, 4pt pass TD, −1 INT, no TE premium, 1QB —
methodology/league-settings.mdplaceholders unconfirmed as of 2026-07-07.