Notes: Film study highlights Jared Goff’s biggest struggles

Hard to ignore the issues when they’re plain to see.

Jared Goff is this week’s hottest topic. Not just because he’ll be returning to Los Angeles in a few days to battle the team that discarded him in a trade back in January, but because, frankly, his play has drawn negative attention from fans, beat writers, and even national analysts.

Doug Farrar of Touchdown Wire falls into the latter category, and he penned his own frustrations with Goff’s play in a well-written piece on Wednesday. In it, Farrar breaks down Goff’s film from Sunday’s disaster against the Cincinnati Bengals and narrows Goff’s issues to three different problematic tendencies: an inability to throw to open receivers deep, failure to succeed beyond his first read, and a lack of confidence.

Farrar’s overall conclusion is dire.

“It’s pretty brutal to say that a quarterback isn’t doing anything well, but that’s where Goff seems to be at this point in time,” he wrote. “Even the things that used to help him get over league average aren’t working anymore.”

The entire thing is definitely worth checking out, especially if you’re a fan of All-22 breakdowns.

• Former Lions second-round pick Ameer Abdullah was released by the Vikings earlier this week, and it appears he’s found a new NFC home:

• Tight ends coach Ben Johnson talked on Wednesday about the coaches’ job of getting creative to make favorable looks for T.J. Hockenson.

• All things considered, Week 6 was a pretty decent one from Lions left tackle Penei Sewell:

• There were a couple of Lions beat writer mailbags this week that focused on Jared Goff. Here’s Chris Burke of The Athletic ($) and Kyle Meinke of MLive.

• Calvin Johnson is still the GOAT:

• You’ll never believe this, but ESPN is projecting the Lions to have the first overall pick in the 2022 NFL Draft. Their projection model gives Detroit a 30.7 percent chance of earning the top pick.