Unexpected: In a surprising turn of events, Detroit lions QB has announced his retirement from professional football, citing ongoing issues with severe injuries that have plagued him in recent seasons. This decision marks the end of a career that was once filled with immense promise and high expectations

We will not try to present this as some sort of plucky underdog story. Indeed, the notion of “against all odds” is a reliable seller, as just about every sports movie from “Rocky” to “The Rookie” underscores, but who’s going to believe an elite prospect who started every game of his college career, became the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL Draft and quarterbacked his team to a Super Bowl fits the category?

For goodness sake, the guy on the opposite sideline in Sunday’s NFC Championship was the literal last player chosen in the draft when he turned pro. You want your dramatic arc, look there.

But even though Jared Goff has had his share of advantages, sometimes those can morph into disadvantages. To whom much is given, much will be required – and Goff frequently has dealt with backlashes of biblical proportions.

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He was chosen for the Pro Bowl in his first full season as a starter, passed for 60 touchdowns over his first two years in the lineup, won 24 of 31 games in that period and took the field with the Rams to open Super Bowl 53.

Three years after being drafted by the Rams out of California – the school that produced Super Bowl QBs Aaron Rodgers, Joe Kapp and Craig Morton – he was facing off with Tom Brady to determine the champion of the NFL’s 2018 season.

And it wasn’t enough.

After another couple years, and probably a few more interceptions than anyone had bargained for, he was shipped off to Detroit along with a couple of first-round picks in exchange for the man who would replace him with the Rams, former No. 1 overall pick Matthew Stafford. Goff was dumped so callously, Rams coach Sean McVay was compelled to publicly acknowledge his error when the two were matched in this year’s Wild Card playoff round.

“Could it have been handled better on my end? Absolutely,” McVay told reporters. “I’ll never run away from that. But the further you get away from it, the more you try to grow as a person, as a man, as a leader. He deserved better than the way that it all went down. I’ll acknowledge that. And I think he knows that too. And I’m not afraid to admit to those things, but I think we’re all better being able to look back on those things. And I do have more appreciation for him as time goes on.”

Yeah, well, now that Goff is preparing to travel back home to face the 49ers in the biggest game the Lions have played since 1991, doesn’t everyone?

Jared Goff returns to California

Goff is a California kid, and not simply because that’s his alma mater. Jared Goff was born in Novato, a city of 50,000-some in Marin County, which is across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco and north on U.S. Route 101, not all that far from the wine country heaven of Sonoma and Napa. He played high school football at Marin Catholic and was considered a 4-star prospect in the 2013 recruiting class.

So how cool is this? What is likely to be the defining game of his career will be played, give or take a highway mile, back home.

Despite the impressive history of Cal quarterbacks, which included college stars Joe Roth and Kyle Boller, Goff became the first in the school’s history to start his first game as a freshman. He threw three interceptions in a 64-39 defeat. There were 10 more defeats that year. In fact, the Bears lost to every major-conference team they played.

“It was Sonny Dykes’ first year, and Goff won the job in August, and he was the starter from day one. And they were terrible,” veteran sportswriter Jeff Faraudo, who is co-publisher of the Cal Sports Report, told TSN. “But he was really good, and he embraced their offense and put up huge numbers.

“In the fourth game of the year, they played on the road at No. 2 Oregon, and Goff was leading the nation in passing yards at the time. He was averaging like 435 yards a game through their first three games, and they get up to Eugene, and about 10-15 minutes before the game starts, this monsoon lets loose. It was raining harder than most of the locals had ever seen. And Cal got behind 27-0 in the first quarter. Goff could not grip the football. He was fumbling the snap, having a hard time gripping passes. I looked up his sta