Jared Goff, entering contract year, says he'd love to stay in Detroit ...

ALLEN PARK -- Detroit has showered Jared Goff in love.

It seems the feeling is mutual.

Now entering a contract year, the Lions quarterback says he’d love to solidify his place in the long-term future of the organization, although acknowledges the situation is not entirely in his control.

“I’ve loved every second of my time here, and would love more,” Goff said after cleaning out his locker on Monday afternoon. “I love Dan (Campbell), I love the coaches and all my teammates. Yeah, it would be great. But it’s not up to me.”

Goff is scheduled to make $21.7 million in base salary next season and count $31.7 million against the cap, which ranks 17th among the highest-paid quarterbacks in the league. Now coming off two stellar seasons where he piloted top-five passing attacks -- and led Detroit to two playoff wins and a berth in the NFC Championship game -- a new deal could come in around $45 million annually.

“It’s not up to me,” Goff said. “I love this place, and we’ll see what happens as time goes on here. But yeah, I love this place, and love Dan and all the coaches love and all my teammates. It’s out of my hands, it’s up to my representatives and obviously the people upstairs (in the front office.”

Goff arrived in the blockbuster Matthew Stafford trade three years ago, along with two first-round picks and a third-round pick. The draft capital that was packaged with him tells you all you need to know about what the Los Angeles Rams thought of him, and after the initial shock of the trade wore off, Goff embraced the opportunity for a fresh start with a coaching staff that actually believed in him.

There was an external expectation that Goff could be a bridge quarterback in Detroit, but the Lions never wavered off their belief the former No. 1 overall pick was the right fit to lead this rebuild. Goff felt that love, and immediately began to flourish once Campbell and Ben Johnson took over the offense midway through his first season in Detroit.

Once Johnson took over as offensive coordinator in 2022, he leaned on Goff to help build the new offense.

“I think empowering anybody, it doesn’t matter really what position it is, makes them a better player overall because the ownership of it, they tend to want to make that stuff work, either it’s a technique or a specific play,” Johnson said last week. “That’s been my experience at least. I do say the mistakes I’ve seen over the years when it comes to offensive football is I’ve seen guys come in and they plop down a playbook and try to change the quarterback, and there is a degree of growing the quarterback and challenging the quarterback, but I think it still starts with what that quarterback does best.

“So, that was always our starting point a couple years ago with Jared. What does he do best? And then we’ve looked to grow and develop him from there. So it’s been very much a hand-in-hand, step-in-step process and his ideas.”

Goff flourished unlike ever before in the new offense, made his third Pro Bowl that year and played at levels beyond what he ever achieved while leading the Rams to the Super Bowl in 2018. This year, Goff completed a career-high 67.3% of his passes while racking up 4,575 yards, 30 touchdowns and 12 interceptions. Detroit finished with the No. 2 passing game in the league overall.

Behind that powerful offense, the Lions matched a franchise record for regular-season wins (12), clinched their first division title since 1993 and hosted their first-ever playoff game at Ford Field -- a game that wound up being against the team that gave up on Goff. And with Matthew Stafford in the house, the quarterback was serenaded with deafening cries of “JA-RED GOFF! JA-RED GOFF!” before he even reached the field for the wild-card game.

The chants continued throughout the night, and Goff delighted the crowd with a dazzling performance, completing 15 of his first 16 passes while leading Detroit to three straight touchdown drives. The Lions went on to win that game, then beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the divisional round as more Goff chants echoed through Ford Field.

In three playoff games, Goff played turnover-free football while completing 69.4% of his passes for 837 yards -- tops in the league -- four touchdowns and a passer rating of 103.3. He became the first Lions quarterback to win multiple playoff games since Tobin Rote in 1957.

Asked how important it is to him to be rewarded for another big season, Goff said: “I don’t know. It’s just how the league goes. If it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. I’ve loved every second of my time here, and would love more.”

Now chants of “JA-RED GOFF! JA-RED GOFF” are rolling through the state, including at college hockey games (the University of Michigan along with Western Michigan University), multiple Grand Rapids Griffins games, Pistons and Red Wings games, and even at a grocery store.

After a rough start in Detroit, Goff has been fully embraced by the city and beyond.

“The last three weeks or whatever -- it’s really been longer than that -- but since the playoffs started and we were able to win that game at home, and see the fans’ response, not only for me, but for our whole team, has been so special,” Goff said. “It’s something I’ll never forget. Obviously the season didn’t end the way we had hoped (in San Francisco), and last night was disappointing. But yeah, those two home games in the playoffs were as special and electric environment as you can imagine, and it was a lot of fun.”