NFL MVP Betting: Can Jared Goff Make a Run at It?

As a fictional detective once said, “Time is a flat circle.”

Jared Goff’s career has followed a circular arc, cycling between terrible to legitimately good and back to terrible every few seasons.

Goff had one of the most disastrous rookie seasons in recent history. He looked so thoroughly unprepared for the NFL as a rookie that in the following season, he won the PFWA’s Most Improved Player. He truly did take a massive step forward in that second year and even generated some buzz as an MVP candidate headed into his third year.

The sky seemed like the limit for the Los Angeles Rams for a couple of seasons with Goff under center, but we all know how his tenure as the Rams’ starting quarterback came to an end. The team essentially traded him in a salary-dump move while replacing him with Matthew Stafford.

Goff’s final season with the Rams resembled his rookie season – a mediocre touchdown rate coupled with an above-average number of turnovers. Things looked even worse when he took over the reins as the Detroit Lions’ starting quarterback in 2021. He averaged just barely over a touchdown per game while taking sacks at a high rate and turning the ball over.

Goff looked bad enough over those two seasons that his turnaround in 2022 actually earned him a first-place vote for the AP’s Comeback Player of the Year award – an award usually reserved for players returning from season-ending injuries. It’s been five years, but now Goff is back on the radar for an MVP season.

The NFL Season Awards betting odds market has Goff at +2500 to win the AP NFL MVP award in 2023, tying him with Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson for the 12th-best odds to take home the award.

Why Jared Goff?

It’s definitely fair to ask why Goff has such good odds to take home the MVP award. After all, we’ve seen him struggle in ways few other 2023 MVP candidates have, and we’ve seen him have those struggles in multiple different stops in his career.

Having multiple stops is also a bit of a red flag for potential MVP candidates. Since 2000, only Peyton Manning and Rich Gannon have won the award while playing for a team other than the one who drafted them. Teams don’t usually let MVP-caliber players walk, and they definitely don’t let them walk while they’re in their prime.

But while we’ve seen Goff hit some real lows over his career, we’ve also seen him perform exceptionally well. He did lead the stacked 2018 Rams to a Super Bowl after all. And he’s also one of the few quarterbacks in NFL history (several of whom did win MVP awards during their careers) to finish an NFL game with a perfect 158.3 quarterback rating. He absolutely scorched the Minnesota Vikings in Week 4 of the 2018 season to the tune of 465 yards and 5 touchdowns while completing 26 of his 33 pass attempts.

The rap on Goff over the years has been that he crumbles under pressure, which is fair. According to Pro Football Focus, last year – a good year for Goff – he averaged a strong 8.3 yards per attempt when kept clean in the pocket. That rate plummeted to 5.4 yards per attempt when under pressure while his interception rate skyrocketed from 0.7% when kept clean up to 2.5% when pressured. Again, this was in a good year for Goff.

Goff has been great when kept clean, though. And in Detroit, he gets to play behind one of the best offensive lines in the league – the Lions’ line ranks fifth-best in the league heading into the 2023 season, according to PFF.

The 2022 season was kind to Goff and the Lions. The team just barely missed out on a playoff berth while Goff completed 382 of his 587 passes (65.1%) for 4,438 yards, 29 touchdowns, and 7 interceptions. His 1.2% interception rate was the lowest of his career, correlating with his strong 3.8% sack rate behind the Lions’ line.

Goff was low-key great last year and could even take it a step further in 2023.

The Lions’ 2023 Offensive Outlook

The Lions made several changes to their offensive personnel during the offseason, but none stand out more than the team’s decision to part ways with running back Jamaal Williams. Maybe it sounds weird to think Goff could become an MVP candidate because the team let Williams leave in free agency, but hear me out.

WIlliams scored a ridiculous 17 touchdowns for the Lions in 2022, 4 more than any other player in the league. What’s even crazier than those 17 touchdowns, though, is the percentage of those that came within their opponent’s five-yard line - 14 of Williams’ 17 touchdowns came from that range. He had 28 carries in that zone in 2022, by far the most in the league. Jalen Hurts finished in second place with 20, and no other player in the league had more than 16.

It was clear that the Lions chose to lean on Williams and their impressive offensive line once they approached the end zone in 2022, and with the addition of former Chicago Bears running back David Montgomery, they’ll likely go run-heavy in that area again this season. But those 28 opportunities inside the five-yard line are bound to regress closer to the league average this season, even if the team takes a similar approach.

Having that many opportunities close to the goal line is a representation of the Lions’ strong offense. It was also aided by the rest of the team’s seeming knack for getting tackled at the one-yard line. Fantasy managers who drafted Amon-Ra St. Brown and D'Andre Swift last season were vividly aware of this phenomenon – it seemed as though there was a force field set up at the goal line that brought them down just short of a score, only for Williams to punch the ball in for a touchdown a play later.

This is mostly anecdotal evidence, but the point is that more touchdowns should skew towards the Lions’ passing game in 2023, meaning Goff’s touchdown totals could exceed his already-strong 29-score mark from 2022.

A Division in Flux

As we’ve covered in previous articles in this series, MVP winners pretty much need to lead their teams to a division title. And in a 17-game season, they more or less have to reach at least 12 wins to stand a chance.

Fortunately for Goff and the Lions, the NFC North is up for grabs for essentially the first time since before the turn of the century. Unless Jordan Love can continue the Green Bay Packers' surprising trend of moving from generational talent to generational talent at the quarterback position, the Lions legitimately seem like the best team in their division.

The NFL Divisions betting odds market has the Lions as the favorites to take the division at +145. It’s the closest division in the league by those betting odds, with the Vikings coming in +270, the Packers at +350, and the Bears at +420, but the Lions have the edge.

The Packers looked like a shell of their former selves in 2022, and that was with Aaron Rodgers at quarterback. Love has some serious shoes to fill in his first season as the team’s starter, but it seems like a stretch to believe he’ll lead the team to a division win in 2023.

The Bears, like the Lions, appear to be on the upswing with Justin Fields at quarterback, but the mismanagement of the franchise under the Nagy/Pace era created a substantial hole that the new regime is still climbing out from.

And while the Vikings took the division title with an impressive 13-4 record in 2022, that was one of the most fraudulent division wins in recent memory. They finished the regular season with a negative points differential while mounting a league-high eight fourth-quarter comebacks.

The NFL Win Totals betting odds market has the Lions’ total set at 9.5 wins, with a -122 lean to the over. They are currently favored in 11 of their 17 games, putting them within reach of that aforementioned 12-win mark.

Conclusion

Goff is closer to putting together an MVP-caliber season than people may realize.

The NFL MVP betting odds market has him with the 12th-best odds to win the award at +2500, but on a surging Lions team, he may have a better opportunity to seize the award than some of his chief competitors. Things will need to break the right way for him, though. He could stand to benefit from having some of Jamaal Williams’ 14 goal-line touchdowns swing in his direction, and the Lions’ defense will need to start living up to expectations.

But an NFC North title and a 12-win season are both in the realm of possibilities for the Lions in 2023, and Goff could be the reason they accomplish those feats.

The above author is a FanDuel employee and is not eligible to compete in public daily fantasy contests or place sports betting wagers on FanDuel. The advice provided by the author does not necessarily represent the views of FanDuel. Taking the author's advice will not guarantee a successful outcome. You should use your own judgment when participating in daily fantasy contests or placing sports wagers.