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July 27, 2017 at 11:25 pm #71332
znModeratorA Familiar Position For Jared Goff
Myles Simmons
A trip to Jared Goff’s hometown reveals a lot about the QB who starred at Marin Catholic and Cal and is now aiming for big things with the Rams.
NOVATO, Calif. — When Jared Goff was a freshman at Cal, the Golden Bears finished 1-11.
If that piece of information is familiar to you, it should be. As one of the widely heralded top quarterbacks of the 2016 draft class, Goff’s record was repeatedly dissected and scrutinized in the lead up to the Rams selecting him with the No. 1 overall pick.
Despite the team struggles of that first college season, Goff helped put the program in a position to go 8-5 in his junior year, winning a bowl game for the first time since 2008. And in the process, Goff became one of the most prolific passers in Pac-12 history.
The situations are not the same, but it’s easy to draw parallels between that freshman season and Goff’s first year in the NFL. Speaking with the quarterback and a few of those close to him in his hometown over a weekend in late June, it’s clear why they are all eager and optimistic as Goff’s second season gets underway.
“I was always a quarterback since I was about 7 or 8 years old,” Jared says. “Always a quarterback.”
The Rams No. 1 overall pick has been hosting a youth flag football tournament over the last two days at his alma mater, Marin Catholic, where he starred as the high school’s varsity signal-caller from 2010-2012. Jared led the program to a 39-4 record in that time, winning three Marin County Athletic League championships and one CIF North Coast Section title.
As he said himself, Jared has been a quarterback long before he was torching high schools from all over the Bay Area. But always?
“It’s kind of funny. He was never the biggest kid. He’s gotten to the point now where he can handle himself, but back then, he was lean,” Jared’s father, Jerry Goff, recalls. Jerry played Major League Baseball in the 90s as a catcher for the Montreal Expos, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Houston Astros. “So we walked up the first day of football practice, and sent him out there with the rest of the kids. And he got in the linemen line.”
“Nobody knows — they’re seven years old, right?” Jerry laughs. “So he’s over there with the linemen and I’m like, ‘Man… I don’t want him to be a lineman.’ Because I had just played high school football and I knew his body wasn’t meant for that. So we had a little chat after and I said, ‘Hey, you’ve got to get out of that group and try this group.’ And that’s when he ended up doing what he’s doing now.”
“He loved it,” Jared’s mother, Nancy Goff, says of her son playing quarterback. “He just took off and loved it from Day 1.”
While quarterbacks don’t traditionally drop back much at that age, part of Jared’s love for the position came from his early ability to pass.
“I was just throwing the ball further than everyone so that’s why I started it,” Jared says. “And then as I grew older, I kind of grew into the position and everything that kind of goes along with it. And it’s kind of shaped me a little bit.”
Shaped him?
“Just the way I carry myself. [Being a quarterback] gives you confidence, and you have to have confidence at the position,” Jared says. “Leadership, energy, and everything else has shaped into my personality.
But if you ask his mom, Jared may have simply been innately suited to play what’s often described as the most difficult position in sports.
“I think he’s a natural leader. He loves telling people what to do, orchestrating things — even not just in football, but when he gets friends together,” Nancy says. “He likes orchestrating and leading, and he’s good at it.”
“He’s got a real strong sense of himself, a real strong sense of confidence,” she continues. “We get asked a lot that question — ‘Where does that come from?’ And I think the real explanation is the easiest: It’s just who he is.”
By the time Jared reached Marin Catholic, he’d been playing football for years. He clearly had arm talent, but no one quite knew how he would fare at the high school level.
Mazi Moayed has been Marin Catholic’s football coach since 2010, and remembers his first impression of Jared well.
“Tall, skinny kid who wanted to play quarterback,” Moayed says. “You have a lot of guys with that type of frame, and everybody wants to play quarterback.”
But there was something different about the way the ball would come off of Jared’s hand.
“You watch him throw the football, and you’d be like, ‘Wow, that looked really easy.’ Like, you felt like you could do it,” Moayed says. “You could tell he was special then. And he had the tools and the gifts — just had to see, at that point, was he going to have the head and the heart for it?”
Moayed and his staff learned Jared possessed both as he began his sophomore year.
“You could see right away [that] he was mature, just a mature athlete,” Moayed says. “And his competitive toughness was pretty awesome. He would compete like crazy at practice.”
Even though he was the starter, Jared wanted to be the scout-team quarterback, too. And so Moayed sent him out there in each practice as a sophomore, with Jared always trying to get the best of the first-team defense.
“It was fun — it was a good rivalry. A lot of his best friends were on the other side of the football, so it made it that much sweeter,” Moayed says. “That stood out right away, though, his sophomore year, was wanting to even be the scout-team guy. And we let him. And I think it made him better because it was always good-on-good.”
Growing up with a professional athlete as a father likely fostered that spirit in Jared.
“He’s got a very competitive side. I mean, he and my husband, they’ll compete over ping pong to where it gets a little nasty sometimes,” Nancy says. “Neither of them can stand to lose.”
But along with the intangibles, Jared’s skill-set allowed him to flourish.
Moyaed says Jared had an “ability to stand in the pocket and [keep his] eyes downfield. It didn’t matter what was happening — he’d be willing to stand in there and take a hit. You saw that in high school all the time and that was the No. 1 thing recruiters noticed when they’d come through, is, ‘Wow, he stays in the pocket and his eyes are downfield the whole time.’”
“He was pinpoint accurate and that was really helpful,” Moyaed adds. “It helped the average guys become a lot better, and the good guys become great because of how he was able to place the ball.”
Even then, Jared was exhibiting qualities that would help him get selected at the top of the draft — including his on-field demeanor.
“His calmness no matter the situation — he takes a hit, just playing the next play staying focused, and cool, and sort of calming the other guys down,” Moyaed says. “He has the energy to keep it fun and loose so he can be efficient.”
That sense of calmness was another significant point of Jared’s evaluation when he was entering the NFL. He says it’s just a quality he thinks he’s always had.
“I don’t know, I think it comes from trying to enjoy the game,” he says. “Trying to not make it more than it is, trying to have fun and don’t make the moment bigger than it is. It’s still just a game at the end of the day — a fun game we all play — and just try to enjoy it everyday.”
“I think he has a way of calming himself and knowing it’s going to be OK,” Jerry says. “You want to succeed at whatever you do. But there’s going to be some failures. And for his ability to push those off and push to the next play, or the next game — whatever it may be — is a really nice way to be wired as a quarterback.”
Whenever a high school player is putting up numbers like Jared — he threw 44 touchdowns as a junior — colleges are going to start giving him some attention. And so during that 2011 season, Jared started getting the sense that he had a future in football.
“I knew my junior year I could do it,” Jared says. “My junior year, I had a pretty good year — a bunch of touchdowns and not many interceptions and we were really good. I had some pretty good receivers around me that year and that’s when I kind of knew I could do it, started getting some interest.”
“Probably his junior year of high school where I knew, ‘You know, maybe he can play in college,’” Jerry says. “I’m like, ‘OK, he’s doing some things now that he has a chance to play in college. I don’t think he can for sure, because he’s still got to get better.’ And he kept getting better.”
So college programs began to show interest, and eventually Jared was offered Washington State, Boise State, and a school just a half hour away from his hometown: University of California, Berkeley.
“He had talked to a few other colleges, offers from a few others, and was still talking to a few others,” Nancy says. “And at one point he said to both Jerry and I, ‘I know I can’t do better than Cal. I know that’s where I want to go.’ And Jerry said, ‘Then just declare. Let’s do it.’ And so he did.”
“It was close to home, that was part of it,” Jared says. “It was nice to be close to home but ultimately, it was the chance to compete in the Pac-12. Great school — if football didn’t work out, you get a great degree.”
It was a choice that elicited plenty of family pride, as both Jerry and Nancy had attended Cal, too. Back then, Jerry not only excelled on the baseball field, but was also a punter for the football program.
“We were so happy — I was so happy. It’s unreal, it really is unreal, as a mom who went to school there, to have your son then deciding that he’s going to play there. And, hopefully, be the starting quarterback at Cal,” Nancy says. “I watched Jerry play there. So to be back on that field, Memorial Stadium, with Jared starting was unreal.”
“Yeah, selfishly it was great, because we could see every home game — we’re a half hour away,” Jerry says. “And then we were able to go on the road, too, because it wasn’t that big of a deal being on the West Coast. It meant a lot, in terms of just his legacy. He’s a second generation Cal guy, which is good.”
There were, however, a couple of factors that could have complicated Goff’s ascent. The first, was that Cal wanted Jared to enroll in the spring of 2013 so he could participate in spring practices. That meant the quarterback would have to graduate Marin Catholic early, which wasn’t something normally done.
“We got on the phone with Marin Catholic and said, ‘What do we need to do?’” Nancy says. “He had to take a few summer school classes. He had to do a few things because Marin Catholic has some other requirements. And they didn’t waive any of them — he had to finish the way everyone else finishes, but within three-and-a-half years. So we went online, he took some classes and he got it done.”
“That was just kind of new, believe it or not, in 2013,” Jerry says. “A lot of kids hadn’t been doing that. It started maybe in 2012 with a few kids. That’s your only chance to play as a freshman at the quarterback position — is to get out of high school a semester early. And he felt, you know, he’s like, ‘I want to do this. I want to get this done.’”
The opportunity to start as a freshman was a significant factor for why Jared wanted to graduate in that time frame. In a way, it’s an example of his highly competitive nature.
“I could’ve played baseball and still enjoyed my spring semester [in high school],” Jared says. “But it was the fact that I knew, if I’m sitting in class here, and it’s second semester senior year — you know how it goes. It’s like every class is kind of a joke towards the end. So sitting there and they’re doing practice across the bridge, and they don’t have a quarterback, and I’m like, ‘What am I doing here?’ I knew I didn’t want to be in that situation. So that’s why I went.”
“I obviously did miss my friends a little bit but there were times where they would come over and see me at Cal or I’d go back home on weekends all the time. It really wasn’t too bad, because I was so close,” Jared adds. “But that was the best decision I’ve ever made, going there early.”
“I think, obviously, when you look back on it, that could be why he is where he is now,” Jerry says. “If he doesn’t go there [early], he probably doesn’t start, and who knows? Things happen for a reason, and it was a good call on his part wanting to do that.”
The other complicating factor: Cal relieved head coach Jeff Tedford of his duties after the 2012 season, meaning Jared would walk into an unfamiliar situation with a coach who hadn’t recruited him. But even though there were potential opportunities to go elsewhere, Jared never wavered in where he wanted to be.
“I committed to the school,” he says. “I love coach Tedford, I thought he was great, I loved his whole staff. But I was committed to Cal as a school and as the institution it is.”
“I think he’s an ‘all-in’ type of guy with whatever he does — very loyal guy,” Moayed says of Jared. “And I think after he’d been committed that long, his heart, mind, and soul was into Cal. In his mind and heart, he had already played there, practiced there, walked-through there. He was already there.”
In some ways, the coaching change may have worked to Jared’s advantage. Cal hired Sonny Dykes and he brought with him an air-raid offense that bore a closer resemblance to what Moayed ran at Marin Catholic.
“With coach Tedford’s scheme, although very successful, it’s hard to come in and learn his system right away in one spring,” Moayed says. “You’re better off [red] shirting to grow in that offensive system.”
Under Dykes, Jared effectively learned the new offensive system and seized the starting role as a true freshman in August.
“I went in there not really knowing what was gonna happen, but just trying to do my best. And through probably a few weeks of early spring training, I thought, ‘Man, I could do this. I feel like I’m better than all these guys and I feel like I could do it,’” Jared says. “And I worked, and worked, and worked all the way through the summer and worked hard all the way through training camp and was named the starter about two weeks before the first game.”
Though he earned the starting role and set a number of passing records in 2013, Goff’s first college season was tough.
“It was rough, there’s no doubt about that. He lost four games throughout his whole high school career, and he loses 11,” Jerry says. “And not only did they lose, they got rolled.”
It was the program’s worst record in history, with Cal’s only win coming Week 2 against Portland State.
Nevertheless, there were positives. Two of those new Cal records were yards passing (3,508) and completions (320) — both of which he’d later break. And it was during that year that Jared and those around him began to realize what his ceiling might be.
“When I played my freshman year, we were terrible but I was still throwing it around pretty good, and completing some balls, and completing some big plays,” Jared says. “So I was like, ‘Alright, I can do it.’”
“Even through that 1-11 season, you would hear a lot of bright things about Jared,” Nancy says. “Especially on TV by the commentators about his pocket presence, his arm, his quick feet — things that they talk about when players can go on, attributes that you kind of need to have to go on. Not that they won that often, but Jared’s physical attributes. So I think it was right his freshman year when we started hearing people talk about it on TV, and I was like, ‘Hmm, OK, this could happen for him.’”
Part of that was Jared’s attitude. Even though his freshman season went south quickly, he stayed even keel.
“He hung in there and kept it together,” Jerry says. “He could’ve fell apart real easily — because there was another guy there who was highly recruited who got there before him. He could’ve [started] looking over his shoulder — never ever flinched the whole time.”
“To see him perform consistently at the level he was, the way he was throwing the ball, that, to me, said a lot,” Moayed says. “Just to keep throwing for all the yards that he did even though the team was struggling the way that it was. And to keep your head about you to be executing efficiently, and re-set every week. When you have a fresh approach, you’ve got to be really tough minded to do that. And after that year, I was like, ‘Hey, it’s only going to get better from here. It’s not going to be any worse.’”
But in order to make that happen, Jared had plenty to overcome. He had the support of his coaches and teammates, but also the confidence in himself to put the 1-11 season behind him and take Cal football in the right direction.
“I think there were a lot of things we went through and had to learn from and ultimately, it was changing the culture, and changing the expectation in the building,” Jared says. “And I was a part of that but I wasn’t the only part of that — there were a bunch of guys there with me that were pulling their weight as well. And I’m proud to say I was a part of it but by no means was I the only person behind that. It was a group effort.”
“No team has ever gone 1-11 and then to a bowl game the next year in college football. And they could’ve done that. There were a couple of games that they probably could have won [but] didn’t,” Jerry says. “They ended up 5-8, and then yeah, they moved on.
“So I think the fans in L.A., just to push this forward a little bit, are going to see that, too, out of this kid,” Jerry continues. “Being that he played seven games and didn’t win any of them — that’s no secret — you guys, hang with this guy. He’s going to be alright.”
As Jerry says, the similarities between Jared’s freshman year at Cal and his rookie season in the NFL are plainly apparent. After L.A. traded up to No. 1 overall to select him, Jared started seven games, but the Rams finished the year 4-12. And completing just 55 percent of his passes for 1,089 yards with five touchdowns and seven interceptions was not an ideal first year by any stretch.
“I learned a lot,” Jared says. “I think I learned, ultimately, that winning in this league is not easy and doesn’t come without sacrifice. There’s a lot of things that you need to lay on the line a little bit to get what you want. And, ultimately, that is winning. And I think I learned that — I think our whole team learned that.”
“Definitely want to use some of the things I did learn last year, though, to continue to move myself forward and our team.”
Those close to Jared all have a strong sense that the quarterback will have a much improved 2017. They say he’s proven he has the ability to do it through his resolve and resiliency.
“His track record shows it — he gets better every year,” Jerry says. “Every year, no matter what he does, at whatever level he plays, he gets better. And he’s going to get better, and get better, and get better. He’s not going to stay static — that’s not in his DNA.”
“I think the biggest thing is going to be taking that 1-11 year and using that to his advantage, just sort of being himself and staying the course,” Moayed says. “He’s been playing football all his life and I always hear these different things on interviews or write ups, and sometimes it’s like they’re talking about a guy like he’s never played football before, you know? It’s sort of funny. But there’s a lot of elements involved. And I think he’s going to bounce back and have a great year coming up with the Rams.”
“I think things are on the rise there. I think it’s kind of similar to Cal, where it’s kind of a shift in culture, new coach, they’re kind of turning some things around,” Nancy says. “And I think it’s going to get better just like Cal — I really do. I have a lot of confidence. Jared, obviously, has a lot of confidence. And I think his teammates do. I mean, you can feel it.”
Wide receiver Nelson Spruce — who helped out at Jared’s camp in June — says he’s noticed a difference not just within the dynamic of the team, but also with the way his quarterback handled the offseason program.
“I just think that leadership role that he’s taken is where I’ve seen the most growth,” Spruce says. “He knows he’s going to be the guy Day 1, and he’s kind of taken the position as the leader of our offense, and the leader of our team. And I think a lot of that has to do with the year that he had, and seeing what goes into an NFL season, and what it takes to lead an NFL team. And I think on the field as well, he’s kind of taken some big strides.
“Being the No. 1 overall pick, and coming in [last year] as a quarterback in that situation — I couldn’t imagine the pressure,” Spruce adds. “Anyone in that situation is going to have their speed bumps. But I think what he did was learn from that. That’s one thing I’ve noticed he does well — he won’t repeat the same mistakes. So I think that he’s kind of taken all the lessons he’s learned from the past year. We did have a lot of negative moments last year, and I think he learned from all those. And he’s doing his best to make sure we don’t repeat them.”
Part of that certainly has to do with Los Angeles’ new staff, led by head coach Sean McVay. Between McVay, offensive coordinator Matt LaFleur, and quarterbacks coach Greg Olson, Jared has plenty of support to help guide him to a much more successful 2017. But it’s the environment McVay implemented in and around the building that Jared feels can make an even bigger impact.
“I think what coach McVay has done so far with the new culture he’s instilled and the new expectations and all that stuff is exactly on line with what we need,” Jared adds. “And I’m really excited about what we’ve got working now.”
Jared has the skills. He has the intangibles. He feels he has the right teammates and coaches around him. He has the experience.
That’s why when you ask him what to expect from the Rams this upcoming season, he eagerly replies, “A lot more.”
“It’s turning — you can feel it in OTAs, you can feel it in minicamp. The tide is turning,” Jared says. “And, again, I think it starts with coach McVay and everything he’s instilled. Just the expectation level is much higher this year — much higher. I know it’s higher on myself. And I know I’m ready to go.”
…
July 28, 2017 at 2:32 am #71340znModeratorData dislike Goff and, thus, the Rams’ 2017 prospects
Expectations for Jared Goff and the Rams’ offense really can’t get any lower.Seth Walder
ESPN AnalyticsOne year after the former Cal quarterback was selected with the first overall pick by the Rams, Los Angeles’ offense is widely anticipated to be one of the worst — if not the worst — in the NFL. ESPN’s FPI thinks even that is generous.
Under the hood in FPI are two offensive strength predictions for each team: one assuming the starting quarterback is playing and the other assuming the backup is playing. Both measurements incorporate expected points added per play and are derived from a combination of the team’s offensive performance the year before, a version of the quarterback’s Total QBR history and a team’s Vegas win total.
With 32 teams and two quarterbacks apiece, that means 64 theoretical offenses are ranked. The Rams with Jared Goff under center? They’re behind the Colts with Scott Tolzien, the Jaguars with Chad Henne and the Jets with Bryce Petty. That’s right: The Rams with Goff are predicted to have the 64th-best offense among the group — dead last. That’s the kind of forecast that probably leaves Rams fans yearning for the days of guaranteed mediocrity under Jeff Fisher.
But being 64th means something else, too. It shows that FPI thinks the Rams, at this moment, would have a better chance of winning with backup Sean Mannion — he of 13 career pass attempts — instead of Goff. While FPI doesn’t project the Rams’ offense with recently signed veteran Dan Orlovsky because he is the third-string quarterback, it’s safe to assume that FPI would also predict Los Angeles to have a better chance with the 33-year-old manning the offense, based on the Lions’ predicted EPA/P with him as their backup last year and how little the metric thinks of Goff.
This, of course, comes on the heels of a disastrous rookie season in which Goff couldn’t even beat Case Keenum for the top spot on the depth chart until the 10th game of the season and then posted a QBR of 22.2 in his seven starts.
Optimists will point out that the situation Goff walked into wasn’t ideal. It’s true — his teammates did not ease his transition to the pros.
Goff was constantly under duress during his seven weeks as a starter. He was sacked a league-high 26 times in that span and dealt with pressure on 35.6 percent of his dropbacks, third-most in the NFL. Opponents blitzed him like crazy — more than anyone else in the league during those weeks. Interestingly, despite his offensive line allowing pressure on 53.8 percent of dropbacks when blitzed (the second-highest rate in the NFL during that span), Goff was actually better when opponents brought five or more pass-rushers. When he wasn’t blitzed, Goff’s protection was better, though, as the Rams allowed him to be pressured at only the 10th-highest rate in the league.
Once/if Goff got rid of the ball, his teammates still didn’t help him much. Rams receivers dropped the rookie’s passes 5.4 percent of the time during those weeks — the seventh-highest rate in the NFL in that span and what would have been the fifth-highest rate among qualified quarterbacks over the course of the season. Unfortunately for L.A. fans, QBR is not blind to the shortcomings of the other players on last year’s Rams offense. It recognizes when receivers drop the ball and when a quarterback is under duress and tries to debit or credit accordingly. Because QBR is an input into FPI’s rating of the Rams’ offense with him at the helm, it helps limit unfair punishment of Goff for his teammates’ limitations.
But all is not lost for Los Angeles and its young quarterback. The Rams can pin their hopes on three factors that could positively affect their offense and Goff, the latter two of which are not considered in FPI’s prediction:
While the level of Goff’s play in 2016 was damning, it did come in a small sample. That means there is a wider range of outcomes for him going forward than, say, a 10-year starter. As such, if Goff and the Rams’ offense started to click, their predicted EPA/P would probably adjust rather quickly.
Goff played in an “Air Raid” system in college and therefore was always going to face a schematic transition. Perhaps he simply needs more time to adjust. Unfortunately for him, there isn’t exactly a great track record of former Air Raid-style quarterbacks making said transition successfully.
Sean McVay. The Rams’ new head coach is charged with developing Goff after Kirk Cousins blossomed into a franchise quarterback in Washington with McVay as his offensive coordinator. If you look closely, there are parallels here. No, Cousins wasn’t drafted with the No. 1 overall pick, but at the start of 2015, he had had limited experience on the field and hadn’t been particularly successful to that point. In fact, heading into that season, FPI saw the Redskins’ offense with Cousins as the starter as the 41st-best theoretical offense in the league. Not quite Goff levels of bad but not a ringing endorsement of Cousins as a starter, either. And, in fact, it did not start out all that pretty. In his first eight games in 2015, Cousins posted a Total QBR of 58.6. From Week 10 on, he was second-best in the NFL with a QBR of 82.5. He followed that by finishing sixth in QBR in 2016.
Was McVay critical to Cousins’ development? Rams fans are hoping so.
But like Goff, McVay enters 2017 with what is effectively a small sample size. Even given the benefit of the doubt that Robert Griffin III was a lost cause by the time McVay took over the offense in Washington in 2014, the new Rams head coach is essentially 1-for-1 in developing quarterbacks.
Ultimately, Goff’s ability as a quarterback looks awfully bleak at the moment but maintains plenty of uncertainty going forward. No one knows if Goff still can become the quarterback the Rams envisioned — by virtue of McVay, a better offensive line or otherwise — but at least at this early stage it is still conceivable, even with FPI’s dour forecast. Although uncertainty might not sound like much, at least the Rams have that.
July 28, 2017 at 6:51 pm #71392znModeratorSnead Has High Expectations for Goff Heading into Year Two
Kristen Lago
What are realistic expectations for Jared Goff in Year 2? Will Jared Goff improve? Is Jared Goff the answer at QB for the Rams?
If you have visited any sports media website in the last few months, chances are that you have read a variation of one of these headlines. Throughout the offseason, much of the attention has surrounded the development of the Rams’ young quarterback who returned to training camp this week, kicking off his second year in the NFL.
General Manager Les Snead was met with those same questions on Thursday, ahead of Saturday’s first official training camp practice.
“Right now, there are 32 quarterbacks penciled in at starter,” Snead said. “He is the only one that is 22 years old. So I do think the experience he got last year coming in with a new offense, you get better with experience, so you expect progress.”
Goff completed just 112 passes for 1,089 yards and five touchdowns in his rookie season in Los Angeles.
But the Rams made important changes throughout the offseason to surround Goff with a strong offensive line, signing veteran left tackle Andrew Whitworth to protect his blindside. The staff also made a point to bring in new skill players and offensive weapons for Goff, including wide receivers Robert Woods and Cooper Kupp.
“We did make some moves,” Snead said, “some where you let players go, some where you bring them in. I do love the veteran presence of an Andrew Whitworth, even a Robert Woods, [who] is a younger guy. We still have a young team, but bringing in some guys that have been there and done that in the locker room helps.”
Snead went on to discuss Goff’s steady improvement over the offseason, translating his hard work in the classroom, studying the playbook, into better action on the field.
“He definitely didn’t spend time trying to get better at golf if you look at the [American Century Celebrity Golf Championship] Tahoe scores,” Snead said with a laugh. “He has spent a lot of time trying to improve his trade in football. I thought throughout the course of the offseason program he was kind of just getting comfortable with some of the core things that we want to embody as an offense,” he continued, “and some of the things that will shape and establish our identity.”
While the next three weeks here at UC Irvine will give Goff a chance to answer many of the questions surrounding his development himself, Snead made a strong point of looking at the quarterback’s improvement not as an immediate goal, but as a continuous journey.
“Hey, he could have stayed another year in college and he didn’t,” Snead said. “He is still young, so when we made the decision with Jared, we knew it wasn’t necessarily a short-term fix — it was going to be a long-term decision for the franchise. I think he’s showing really encouraging things, it’s just about doing it consistently down-in and down-out.”
July 29, 2017 at 10:41 am #71418znModeratorPro Football Focus @PFF
Jared Goff had little chance on many third downs last year
July 30, 2017 at 1:39 am #71458znModeratorRams second-year quarterback Jared Goff embraces his role as a leader
By Gary Klein
http://www.latimes.com/sports/rams/la-sp-rams-training-camp-20170729-story.html
He was one of the first players on the field, a solitary figure in a red No. 16 jersey stretching and loosening up as Rams teammates made their way out of the locker room at UC Irvine.
He took his place at the front of a line for team warmups, and then assumed control of the huddle under the watchful eye of a new head coach, who playfully lined up as a defensive back during a few drills.
Quarterback Jared Goff completed some throws and missed on others Saturday as the Rams opened training camp. But for the second-year pro, the first practice was really about asserting himself as a team leader from the outset.
“That’s a big deal,” he said, “just knowing I’m the guy that they’re going to look to. It is my team to lead and my team to direct and control and command.
don’t take that lightly.”
Goff’s mental state was a stark contrast from last year, when he arrived at camp as the No. 1 pick in the NFL draft but was relegated to second- or third-team reps and was brought along slowly by then-coach Jeff Fisher.
There is no debate this year. Goff, with seven games of experience and a stronger physical frame, is the starter.
“Night and day,” he said of the difference from last year’s camp. “I feel good. Feel comfortable.”
Much of the credit, Goff said, goes to his new head coach, Sean McVay.
Rams training camp
The best photographs from the first day of Rams training camp at UC Irvine.
“Anyone going from Year 1 to Year 2 has that natural jump,” Goff said, “but I think he’s done a great job so far of implementing the offense with myself and the rest of the team.”McVay, 31, is the NFL’s youngest coach. He directed Rams practices during organized team activities and minicamps. But overseeing Saturday’s workout apparently felt a bit different.
“It feels like it’s a little bit closer to reality,” he said.
McVay’s success will be tied, in large part, to Goff.
Aaron Donald doesn’t show up, and remains the topic of conversation at Rams camp
On Saturday, Goff completed impressive passes to Robert Woods, Tavon Austin and rookie Cooper Kupp. He also connected several times with tight end Tyler Higbee. But “a little bit of adrenaline” caused him to overthrow some open receivers, he said.“Up and down,” he said of his performance.
“The timing was probably a little bit off on a couple things,” he added, “but I thought it was good first day.”
Said McVay: “There was some good and some bad. I thought the defense created some pressure. The ultimate goal for the quarterback is we’ve got to find completions…. We’ll get it cleaned up.”
Last hurrah
Cornerback Trumaine Johnson shook off barbs from a couple of fans in the beer garden area of the facility, smiling as he approached them.
The Rams decided not to give Johnson a long-term contract this offseason, so he will earn nearly $17 million on the franchise tag and then become a free agent.
“I wanted it — I wanted it big-time,” Johnson said of an extension. “I believe the Rams are going in a different direction at the end of the season, and that’s out of my control.
“So I’m here, and I’m putting my jersey on, and I’m still lacing up my cleats. I’m happy. I’m here to win games and help this team win games.”
Johnson intercepted seven passes in 2015, but only one last season. The sixth-year pro is expected to start opposite either Kayvon Webster or E.J. Gaines.
“Any player would want a long term deal — I just didn’t get one,” Johnson said, but assured that it would not adversely affect his play.
“I’m not about to feel sorry for myself and be mad at it, and be selfish about it,” he said. “It’s not about me. It’s about this team and winning, and that’s what I’m here for.”
July 30, 2017 at 10:44 am #71463znModeratorWith McVay, Goff Feeling Comfortable to Start Year 2
Myles Simmons
A lot has changed for Jared Goff over the last 12 months. Which is why it makes sense when the quarterback said Saturday the beginning of his second training camp feels “night and day” from his first.
“I feel good. I feel comfortable,” Goff said after Saturday’s practice. “Obviously, I have a really good idea of what we’re trying to do this year and I felt good today.”
Among those significant changes: the coaches, the offensive scheme, some of the players around him. But perhaps the most important is that Goff has entered this camp as the Rams’ starting quarterback. And that makes a difference.
“Yeah, that’s a big deal. Just knowing I’m the guy that they’re going to look to, it is my team to lead and my team to direct and control and command — I don’t take that lightly,” Goff said. “I’m trying to put a lot of pride into that and try to do my best.”
Wide receiver Tavon Austin said he’s noticed a difference in the quarterback both on and off the field.
“He took more control of how we were working,” Austin said. “Even when we’re in the huddle, he’s pulling it together. He’s talking to us, he’s pointing towards us on certain concepts when he’s telling us on certain [plays] to be ready. I like how he’s taking control of the huddle.”
As for Goff’s performance on the first day, both the quarterback and head coach Sean McVay described the practice as “up and down.” McVay said Los Angeles’ defense had plenty to do with that, as the unit created backfield pressure.
“I think the ultimate goal for the quarterback is we’ve got to find completions,” McVay said. “I think the defense did a nice job make of making things tough on him today. We’ll look at it. We’ll get it cleaned up, but it was some good and some bad.”
“I felt OK — like I said, there were no mental errors. I had some good throws, I had some bad throws,” Goff said. “There was a little adrenaline — I led some of those guys for a couple of yards. Besides that it was good. Like I said, the timing was probably off on a couple of things, but I thought it was a good first day.”
That adrenaline stemmed from it being the first day of camp.
“Yeah of course,” Goff said. “However many fans we had, it was awesome. I think I speak for a lot of guys — everyone was a little bit anxious, everybody’s going a little bit fast.”
One of the other elements Goff has to get used to during this camp is his head coach calling plays. Of course, the quarterback already got a taste of that during OTAs and minicamp. But Goff said he thinks it should be a good thing for him as a quarterback.
“I think all of the way through OTAs up until now he’s done a tremendous job not only running the offense, but managing us on the field. He continues to do a good job with us,” Goff said. “He’s obviously the leader of the team and for him to be the guy calling the plays is very helpful for myself and the offense.”
Since he was hired in January, McVay has harped on how important communication will be in order to build a winning team. Goff complimented McVay in that area for the way he’s established a relationship between the two of them.
“I first met him in the interview and ever since it’s been better and better,” Goff said. “I have a really good relationship with him – very good open communication with him about how I’m feeling, how he’s feeling, plays I like plays I don’t like, same back with him, plays he likes. We communicate very well and that’s my favorite part about him probably, is the way he’s able to communicate with not only me, but everyone else on the team.”
That’s part of why Goff said he feels McVay has made him even more comfortable than he would otherwise be heading into the 2017 season.
“I think anyone going from year one to year two has that natural jump,” Goff said. “I think he’s done a great job so far of running the offense with myself and the rest of the team.”
As for that year-to-year progress, Goff said he’s feeling “like you should feel in that year two,” while also mentioning he thinks he’s more mature.
“I think you just grow, you get older, you have more experiences and you know how to carry yourself a little bit differently,” Goff said. “I don’t know if there’s any examples. Just as you get older, I can tell that with myself and the way I’m able to communicate with my teammates a lot better.”
With Goff manning arguably the most difficult position in sports, how he grows and communicates with his teammates could determine much of Los Angeles’ success this year and beyond. But as for 2017 expectations, how much different does the quarterback believe this year’s team will be?
“We’ll have to wait and see,” Goff said, adding he’s excited to get the new season going. “We have a new team this year with new energy, new culture and a new perspective. Like I said, excited to make the past the past, and start a new future.”
July 31, 2017 at 9:57 am #71536znModeratorCAN SEAN MCVAY TURN AROUND JARED GOFF?
PETER KING
https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/07/31/nfl-training-camps-tour-cowboys-broncos-rams-chargers-peter-king
IRVINE, Calif. — At UC-Irvine on Saturday, on the first day of camp, rookie coach Sean McVay was about as involved as a head coach can be in one position. It was the quarterback group, naturally. McVay bounded in and out of drills, directing the quarterbacks—most noticeably Jared Goff—with the kind of hands-on coaching Goff really needs. When you start seven games as a rookie, lose them all, complete 54.6 percent of your throws, and have the league’s lowest passer rating, hard coaching is good. And necessary.
At first blush, the completions are still hard to come by for Goff. In throws to wideouts against man coverage, he overthrew a couple open receivers, looking like he was trying to be too fine. The most impressive receivers, to me, were rookies Cooper Kupp and Pharoh Cooper. Kupp is not a great separator, but he is such a precise route-runner; his cuts are on a dime. Pharoh Cooper, meanwhile, competes for balls and looks like he’s been here three years. I’ll be fascinated to watch these two competitive players battle for balls—because Goff won’t throw all his passes exactly on target. “There’s 32 number one quarterbacks in the league,” said GM Les Snead, whose job is likely on the line this year, and some of it due to the choice of Goff number one in the 2016 draft. “Jared’s the only one who’s 22 [years old]. That’s really young for a quarterback, obviously. He’s growing into the job.”
But Goff’s arm is strong enough to make the throws, judging by his efforts downfield Saturday. Club people say the big difference between Goff with McVay and Goff last year is the number of potential solutions on each dropback the multiple McVay offense will afford him. Kirk Cousins, last year’s McVay pupil in Washington, says the great thing about McVay’s play calls is that he’d always be able to find someone—at least one receiver—with an open window for a completion. “Like Kirk says,” Goff said here, “this offense has a lot of answers. On every play, the way Sean conceptualizes things, he gives us at least one chance to make a good play. And with the variables in this offense—the deep ball, the trickeration—it’s still not that complicated for the quarterback. I think it’s a great offense for a quarterback.”
McVay will have patience with Goff, who clearly isn’t going to be yanked early in the season unless the results are putrid. I believe the most important addition to this offense is left tackle Andrew Whitworth. The longtime shutdown tackle for the Bengals will spend his twilight years (year?) protecting Goff’s blind side. That was an excellent addition, and a vital sign for a team trying to let a young quarterback have a couple more split seconds to think under pressure. Whitworth looked leaner Saturday, and he moved better than a 35-year-old tackle has a right to. Mostly, he gives off the air of, I got this. Go worry about some other position. “He’s huge for us,” said Goff. “I love having him out there.”
Time will tell on this coach, and this quarterback. McVay knows he needs to find Goff some completions, and that’s going to be his aim coming out of the chute.
August 7, 2017 at 1:10 am #72014znModeratorJared Goff provided a glimmer of hope Saturday for Rams
VINCENT BONSIGNORE
Through the haze of the early-evening sunset Saturday at StubHub Center, a glimmer of hope emerged for the Rams.
t came and went as fast as Melvin Ingram bursting off the edge of the line of scrimmage toward an opposing quarterback. And it will be long forgotten by the time the Rams return to practice Sunday at UC Irvine, let alone when they kick off next week against the Cowboys in their preseason opener or when they welcome the Colts to the Coliseum the second week of September to open the regular season.In the whole scheme of things, it was nothing more than a footnote in a 16-game NFL season.
But it was there nonetheless, witnessed by the several thousand Chargers season-ticket holders who showed up at StubHub Center to watch the Chargers and Rams practice together.
Toward the last half of practice, the two teams lined up 11 on 11 in a two-minute drill. It was first-team offense against first-team defense, the ball being set down 70 yards from the opposing end zone.First up was the Rams and second-year quarterback Jared Goff who, operating exclusively out of the shotgun, marched the Rams down the field while completing 8 of 10 passes.
The drive ended short of the Chargers goal line when Goff threw out of the end zone on third down rather than try to force the ball into tight coverage. His phase of the drill was done at that point, but the work he put in and the results it elicited were not lost on anyone.
The Rams have invested heavily in Goff, and it goes well beyond even the six draft picks they traded to move to the top of the 2016 draft to select him first overall. They hired a new coach in Sean McVay with an offensive background and experience in developing quarterbacks. And he, in turn, surrounded himself with an offensive staff heavy on offensive and quarterback development.
They reached into the free agent market to add a reliable wide receiver in Robert Woods and an elite left tackle in Andrew Whitworth. They took a deep dive at wide receiver and tight end in the draft with Gerald Everett and Cooper Kupp and Josh Reynolds.
These were necessary moves to try to inject life into an offense that ranked dead last in far too many NFL categories. But also to help expedite the development of Goff, for whom so much was invested and so much is expected.
And while his performance Saturday will soon fade from memory, it was one of those signposts teams like to see on the often bumpy road from which quarterbacks are either or made or broken.
The last time we saw Goff share the field against a team other than the Rams, he was was a shell-shocked, beaten-down rookie whom the Arizona Cardinals terrorized with seven sacks. It was the seventh and final leg of a demoralizing rookie season in which Goff continually operated under pressure behind a hapless offensive line and alongside wide receivers who struck little fear in anyone.
On Saturday, playing behind a rebuilt offensive line and a retooled receiving corps, Goff looked confident and decisive as he smartly and prudently moved the Rams down the field connecting on short passes to Woods and second-year wide receiver and tight end Pharoh Cooper and Tyler Higbee.
With the Chargers scheming to take away the big pass, Goff didn’t try to force the issue by driving the ball into dangerous areas and tight windows.
“Taking what they gave us,” Goff said afterward. “They were playing their base defense, and with what they brought the underneath stuff was open so when it’s there you keep taking it.”
Or, as McVay put it: “Being smart with the football.”
Those are sacred words for a head coach, especially one with an offensive background like McVay. No need to try deliver ball into nearly closed windows when targets are bound to be open somewhere on the field.
Sometimes they’re identified on a pre-snap read, sometimes by taking the necessary time to survey the field. Point being, there’s usually a safe place to throw a ball on any given play. Even if it’s out of the end zone to preserve a shot at a field goal.
In fact there’s a drill McVay puts his quarterbacks through in which they slowly, methodically scan from one read to the next on their read progression before finally throwing the ball. It forces them to slow down and look at every potential receiving target.
Goff did that Saturday in the two-minute drill. The reward was a segment of practice tape he’ll be satisfied to scour over.
“There were a lot of things I thought we did good, there were a lot of things I feel we need to work on,” he said. “Off the top of my head I can point to a couple, but I thought for the most part we moved the ball pretty good especially in that two-minute drill.”
It helped that, for the most part, the rebuilt offensive line he’s playing behind gave him pockets to work from.
“I was really happy with what we were doing up front. Really confident, really felt good.”
Goff is by no means a finished product. Coming from a spread offense in college in which he operated mostly out of the shotgun, he still looks more comfortable in that setting than under center. Balancing that out is a constant point of emphasis in camp
“That’s the biggest thing is figuring out a way to transition some stuff where you’ve been in the gun and then operating under center with some of the play actions and bootlegs and just dropping back from under center,” McVay said. “But I think he’s doing a nice job finding his rhythm, getting more comfortable every day.”
Saturday was one of the more comfortable days.
It was provided just the tiniest glimmers of hope.
But it was a glimmer of hope nonetheless.
August 7, 2017 at 1:13 am #72016znModeratorRams quarterbacks efficient in first practice with Chargers
Joe Curley
CARSON — Los Angeles’ two NFL teams met on the practice field Saturday and a fight, contrary to the marketing slogan, did not break out.
Instead, the Rams capped their first week of training camp with a solid performance against the Chargers that featured Jared Goff shining in the two-minute drill, Todd Gurley finding the end zone without being touched and no significant injuries.
Which made the day, one week before the team opens the preseason schedule against the Cowboys at the Coliseum. an overall success.
“There was some good, some bad, some things we need to clean up, but I thought it was great work that we got today,” Rams head coach Sean McVay said.
Goff completed 23 of 35 passes across seven different drills, which included both 11-on-11 and 7-on-7 situations.
The second-year quarterback was especially strong in the two-minute portion of the full team drills, when he marched the team to the Chargers 8 by completing 8 of 11 passes for 68 yards.
“I thought he settled in,” McVay said. “I thought he did a nice job in the two-minute drill taking completions, being smart with the football and then at the end where we did a little bit of move the ball, he made some good third-down throws.”
Backup Sean Mannion completed 15 of 27 passes, including 8 of 12 during the 7-on-7 segments. Both quarterbacks struggled during the third-down drill, combining to complete just 2 of 10 passes.
There weren’t many explosive gains in the passing game, but neither quarterback threw an interception.
“I felt good,” Goff said. “I thought for the most part, we moved the ball pretty well, especially in that two-minute drill there. I was really happy with what we were doing up front.”
The defense had an up-and-down day against Philip Rivers and the Chargers offense without starters Michael Brockers, Robert Quinn and Lamarcus Joyner.
“We just wanted to be smart,” McVay said. “We’ve got a maintenance program in place with Robert Quinn and Lamarcus just had a little tweak to his back, but he should be good.”
Versatile offensive lineman Andrew Donnal was not in uniform and had a brace on his left leg.
Undrafted rookie Kevin Davis had an interception of Chargers quarterback Michael Bercovici, the former Westlake High quarterback, who also had a touchdown run.
Another Westlake High product, Rams receiver Nelson Spruce, caught a touchdown pass from Mannion and also had some work on both punt teams.
McVay called the exercise “invaluable” for the Rams.
“The Chargers have some great players — Melvin Ingram, (Joey) Bosa, (Casey) Hayward on the corner, so I thought it was great work where it’s a little bit different structure than what we’re typically accustomed to seeing from our defense every single day,” McVay said.
August 10, 2017 at 3:03 am #72172znModeratorIS JARED GOFF TOUGH ENOUGH TO BE THE KING OF HOLLYWOOD?
The Rams QB is sick of losing and does not want you thinking he’s soft. The recovering No. 1 pick is gonna do L.A. his way—even if he takes some licks in the process.TYLER DUNNE
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2726189-jared-goff-rams-interview-2017-nfl-season-preview
Adversity makes quarterbacks, and no, this is not adversity. This is a life that’s too good to be true.
His high school, nestled west of San Rafael Bay, California, resembles a tropical oasis. Kids eat lunch outdoors at Marin Catholic…on leather cushions…on pristine wooden benches…covered by navy awnings.
Jared Goff glides through his old hallways with a few of his best friends just like old times, past the site of “Saladgate,” right to the Class of 2013 headshots. There’s Goff, grinning, bow tie ‘n’ all.
He walks outside. Far behind an end zone, there’s a parking structure that is an architectural masterpiece. Off in the distance, behind the bleachers, is Mount Tamalpais. It’s a sight straight out of National Geographic. This is the nation’s 17th-richest county.
Goff shrugs and acknowledges he’s never been through any chilling hardships off the field. All four of his grandparents and both parents are still alive, he notes, as are his closest friends.
He was Cal’s first true freshman quarterback to start a season opener. He was drafted first overall into the NFL.
He doesn’t have a blemish on his face, and his hairline isn’t merely intact—his full, golden locks flow in the wind. And sure, Goff listens to Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift. What of it?
He’s not like Dak Prescott, whose mom died. He’s not like Derek Carr, whose infant son nearly died.
Nor is he a 199th overall pick like Tom Brady. Nor was he embarrassed nationally in a green room like Aaron Rodgers.
Goff entered the NFL unscathed, it seemed, but he was then bruised and bloodied and winless through seven starts. Now, the future of pro football in the country’s second-most populated city rests on his shoulders. This 22-year-old can be the King of Los Angeles, the reason for people to care about the NFL in the land of Magic and Kobe and Kershaw and LaVar and Ice Cube and Dr. Dre. And geez, if only people would stop confusing him with Ryan Gosling. Dozens ask if he’s him. He says he’s not. They move on, disappointed.
With his feet now propped up on the desk of his old high school coach, Goff rubs a cold water bottle against his forehead.
Back at Marin Catholic to run his first football camp and tournament, he’s asked to relive a hellish rookie season.
The first hit that comes to mind? Goff pretends to punch himself across the face: “I don’t even remember who it was.” Down 42-7 against Atlanta on Dec. 11, he ran for the end zone and was helicoptered at the goal line: “If I give everything I got and I get hurt, so be it.” Against Seattle four days later, he never even saw Richard Sherman in his peripheral: “I’m trying to score. I was never thinking, ‘OK, I’m going to get hit.'”
He was sacked 26 times in those seven losses. A human pinata. And he knows what you’re thinking: that he’s too soft, too overwhelmed, a kid too blinded by those L.A. lights.
So he’s blunt.
Right here, the essence of Goff crystallizes. One thought, above all else, drives him play in and play out.
“I’m more afraid that people will be like, ‘He’s a little bitch,’ than I am of truly getting hit,” Goff says. “So that’s what drives me to be like, ‘I’m fine.’ That mentality is what keeps me in the game.
“I remember going in for that touchdown [against Atlanta], knowing I’m about to get absolutely sandwiched.
“Sure enough, my chinstrap came off. My nose was bleeding.”
In Year 2, he must wipe that blood away and win.
Quarterbacks are not allowed to be goofy, or fun.
You must stand at the podium and filibuster to the masses on the merits of seizing opportunities and giving 110 percent. You must conduct yourself as a buttoned-up CEO 24/7 and take yourself far too seriously.
Dabbing? A borderline misdemeanor. Barking at a teammate after a drop? Classless. Aloof after an interception? Memed for life. NFL teams make $100 million investments in you these days, so every word, every reaction to success and failure is scrutinized.
Then there’s Goff, here at his camp, throwing fade routes to 10- and 11-year-olds. He wants each of them to dance after every score.
One kid does the worm. “Wow!” he yells.
One bowls the football to knock over another coach at the camp. “That’s choreographed. That’s a $5,000 fine!”
He’s no robot, crafting an artificial image of himself. He’s also no suave celeb, cutting people out of his life due to inconvenience.
Goff is who he is.
He’s a prankster. When he was seven years old, in the family hot tub, Goff told his mom to look through the hole on the other end of a pool noodle. Nancy Goff didn’t think twice because he was so young. Jared then proceeded to blow 100-degree water straight into her cornea.
“I thought he blew my eye out,” Nancy says now. “I really thought I lost my eye.”
Into high school, Jared and his pal Robbie Terheyden devised a ruthless prank on a pizza delivery man. Jared tied up his friend and stuffed him into a closet near the front door. When the pizza arrived, Robbie jolted out in nothing but his underwear and stormed through the door while screeching: “Save me! Save me! He’s got me held hostage!”
This prank didn’t land. The guy delivering the pizza said he was from New York City and saw this all the time.
And oh, about “Saladgate.”
Goff and Co. once placed a plate of salad on top of a door hinge so when one of their friends walked through, it’d spill all over him. That friend never arrived as planned. So they took the plate down, set the plate up, took it down, set it up until…one girl walked through and the salad spilled all over her. To this day, nobody knows who exactly was the guilty party. All were punished.
Stay on alert. He’s still at it. Just a few days before his camp back home, Goff found a small garter snake in his garage, put it in a cup and pretended to throw it at his mom. One problem. When he looked in the cup, the snake was gone.
“I’m like, ‘Where is it?'” Mom says. “He’s like, ‘I don’t know.'”
Dad chimes in.
“It’s in the house somewhere.”
The Rams see this side of Goff daily.
“He’s a corny dude,” receiver Pharoh Cooper says. “He’s got a little cornball to him. That’s just how he is.”
He’s loyal. Over Christmas break in college, Goff awoke to a 4 a.m. phone call. It didn’t matter that he had a 6 a.m. workout in Berkeley, about 30 miles from home. When Ryan Farney, a former high school teammate, and another friend called to say they just blew $800 at a casino and didn’t have enough money for their cab to take them all the way home, Goff was there within 10 minutes to pick them up at the exit where their driver had dropped them off.
And before threatening his mom with that snake, Jared asked her to walk outside on Mother’s Day. Right there, with a big red bow on top, was a 2018 Audi Q5.
He’s smarter than you think. The world had a laugh at Goff’s expense when he said on HBO’s Hard Knocks he didn’t know the sun set in the west. But this wealthy kid from Novato was also the only Caucasian in an African-American Studies class at Cal. He’s always challenging his mind, exploring what he doesn’t know.
He’s also always trying out new technology. Goff loves his drone and has gotten better at flying it since he landed it in his neighbor’s pool. And somehow—his close friend Cam Croteau still has no clue how—Goff effectively hacked into the cellphones of both Croteau and one of Croteau’s cousins so it seemed like they had called each other.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“Hey, what’s up?”
Both were confused. Goff simply listened in from his own phone and laughed.
He’s authentic. Before the NFL draft, one scout, roaming the campus in disguise, approached Goff and said, “You’re Jared Goff! You must be a big deal here!” to gauge his reaction. Goff told him he was simply a student at Cal.
This constellation of character traits is what has endeared Goff to teammates.
“He’s a serious dude,” Farney says. “But there’s a side to him that’s lighthearted, and that’s what makes him sincere. He’s the real deal. A genuine guy.”
So, no, Goff is not soaking in L.A. Last year, Goff turned down all but two invitations to movie premieres. He checked out Beauty and the Beast only because his mother and sister wanted to go and Kong: Skull Island because he knew some people involved with the movie. He’ll eat sushi downtown each Thursday. Other than that, he has zero plans to bask in the Hollywood limelight.
He’s single and not ready to mingle. A celebrity relationship is at his fingertips, but he’ll pass.
“You don’t have to be the King of L.A.,” Mom says, “in the way one person thinks you’re the King of L.A. He’ll do it his way.”
Her son puts it a different way.
“Do you think Tom Brady is with Gisele [Bundchen] if he doesn’t win a Super Bowl? No. There’s nothing that matters if you don’t win games. It’s just like if you’re an actor or actress or a rapper or anything. If you don’t produce, people won’t care.”
Getty Images
The skepticism wasn’t a shock because Mazi Moayed understands perception. Still, this predraft question from a Rams scout—Is Jared tough?—felt like more of an insult to Goff’s former high school coach.He pointed to countless plays, comebacks, hits taken, hits delivered, the 1-11 season at Cal.
“Extremely tough,” Moayed says. “He’s mentally and emotionally strong.”
Goff, still sitting at Moayed’s desk, listens to that story and assures he doesn’t care about perception.
“If people think I’m soft, I don’t really care. That doesn’t bother me,” Goff says, contradicting what he’d said moments earlier. “I know what my teammates think.”
Because underneath that layer of “cornball” is a layer of grit that most outsiders miss.
He insists he’s never been hurt. He doesn’t know what hurt even means—he’s only been injured twice (ever) in all sports. High ankle sprains. Blindside hits. He plays through everything. And Goff repeats he did not suffer a concussion on that Sherman hit despite the team announcing it as such, saying he scored higher on his post-hit concussion test than his initial baseline test.
The Rams wouldn’t let him back in.
Now it sure sounds like Goff wants a piece of Sherman.
“He said I was running disrespectful,” Goff says sternly. “I think he was mad, too. I kept throwing at him.”
Count on seeing Goff’s mean streak this season. It’s inside of him. Boiling. Waiting to burst. Once, when Goff was the second baseman on Marin Catholic’s baseball team, the runner in front of him was signaling pitches to the batter. Goff was livid. He told the runner, on the spot, that if he did it one more time he’d make sure a fastball was thrown directly at his rib cage.
In football, when Marin Catholic was demolishing a team, someone speared Goff in the sternum as he held the ball on an extra-point attempt.
“This rugby dude just comes in, flying headfirst—pow!—right in his chest,” Moayed says. “It was totally intentional.”
Goff popped up, ready to fight, and the player scurried away.
“I’m like, ‘Where are you going?'” Goff says.
Moayed calls it a “Joe Coolness.” He was so calm, so cool in leading his team to legendary comeback wins, but he can also “rip your heart out.” Sure enough, Goff has always worn No. 16 for Joe Montana. It was his dad’s idea long ago.
Ever since then, Jerry Goff has never been able to tell if his son threw four touchdowns or four picks.
“Even at Cal when it was a shitshow and with the Rams when it was tough, he’s got that ability to keep it in perspective,” says Dad, a former MLB player. “Of course you want to go nuts when you’re not playing well and throw shit and break stuff—that’s my personality—but he’s different. He keeps the positive energy going in the right direction.
“At the same time, he’ll carve you up if he needs to.”
Because last season wasn’t the first shitshow Goff encountered.
He’s confident—borderline positive—he can turn the Rams around because of that first year at Cal. As the losses mounted—55-16, 49-17, 62-28—Goff was hammered. He suffered a Grade 1 shoulder separation in a 63-13 loss to Stanford, played on and wasn’t forced out until another hit made it a Grade 3. “My arm was stuck,” he recalls. Meanwhile, upperclassmen never seemed to care. They headed straight to bars and frat houses after games.
And it pissed Goff off.
“I’m embarrassed,” Goff says. “I’m like, ‘What are you guys doing going to a frat party after a game? We just got our ass kicked.’ … Seeing now, seeing some of these guys who are at Cal, the culture is so much different. I hope I had something to do with it.”
He sparked a sense of accountability. Changing a culture, to Goff, is both macro and micro.
Of course, you need to deliver on the field, but it also takes doing the little things. It’s gathering up everyone’s wristbands after practice in high school to have them washed. Years past, sweaty bands were all tossed into a bucket after every practice, and it smelled like death. It’s having “Back with a Vengeance” shirts printed after Marin Catholic lost at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum his junior year. They won the NorCal finals the next year.
Above all, Goff knows every teammate is watching his every move.
Standing on the sideline at his son’s camp, Jerry Goff taps open his phone to show a side of Jared nobody saw last season. It’s the aftermath of the worst hit Goff took in the preseason. Covering his entire lower back is a black bruise so big, so gory, it’s something straight out of a Quentin Tarantino movie.
Cooper brought the sight up himself unsolicited. “Horrible,” the receiver says with a shudder.
Translation: Goff was thrown into the exact opposite situation as Dallas’ Prescott, He was handed a porous offensive line, a dearth of weaponry and no guidance. Nonetheless, there was Goff after taking seven sacks in a 44-6 flogging against Arizona, walking locker to locker.
Never forget this feeling, he told teammates. You never want to feel it again.
The Rams have endured 10 straight losing seasons. Pro football has failed, miserably, in L.A. before.
This is his greatest challenge.
“I think he embraces that. I really do,” his dad says. “He hasn’t said this, but he wants to prove L.A. made the right decision in giving up a bunch. That’s with him every day. He wants to show the fans and the organization, You know what, you invested this much in me, I’m going to give it all back to you guys with a championship.”
Goff knows the standard is different for him. It’s better that way, he promises.
But it’s also true a quarterback can get beaten down to the point of no return.
The Goff family sits among the fans at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, right at the 50-yard line. Dad no longer tracks the ball. Instead, his eyes stay on Jared through the finish of the throw. Mom says a prayer aloud every game as her daughter asks, “Are you talking to yourself?”
Replays are the worst for her. She can hear the crunch of the hit.
And elsewhere, there’s doubt. A lot of doubt.
One NFC scout, likely speaking for others, calls Goff a career backup.
“He was a slow processor,” the scout says. “He took big shots. He reminds me of Blaine Gabbert early in his career, where he got hit so much you worry, ‘Is he going to bounce back his next years?’ … Some of these thinly built people get fucked up. That goes back to the violence of the NFL and the physical collisions. This is a fast, physical game. With defensive lines today, there’s a lot of bullets flying at you, and I just don’t see the calmness; I just don’t see the poise.”
Which isn’t what the Rams mortgaged their future to acquire. One reason they coughed up a first, two seconds and a third-round draft pick in 2016 and a first and a third in 2017 was Goff’s ability to hang in the pocket for that extra split-second, wait for a receiver to make a cut and whistle a bullet on the money before getting drilled. That’s what led to a 39-4 record in high school and a string of records at Cal.
As a rookie, he appeared damaged. Different. Whether Goff can recapture this poise, his best quality, may answer whether he takes L.A. or not. Sacked a combined 433 times, David Carr and Tim Couch eroded into shells of themselves.
This NFC scout looks at Goff and sees a similar demise brewing. He also sees a striking lack of presence, of that desirable mold we’ve all come to expect from a quarterback. He interpreted Goff’s attitude as being “too cool for school,” adding that he appeared “completely rattled” when news of his nine-inch hands went viral at the NFL combine.
Those closest to Goff are adamant such an opinion is wrong.
Moayed takes a look at Goff, now about 15 yards away near the field, and repeats that tough comes in different categories.
With Goff, “it’s inner.”
“You can’t see it,” Moayed says. “There’s tough guys who come out of all kinds of environments. Yeah, he’s GQ-smooth when you look at him. But he has the competitive toughness. I have zero doubts—zero doubts—that he’ll be successful at that level.”
Adds Cooper: “On the outside, you’re not going to think he’s tough. It’s just the way he carries himself and looks, you know? But on the field, he’s a tough guy.”
When 250-pounders with 4.5 speed barrel down this season, Chase Forrest, one of Goff’s backups at Cal, knows what’ll happen.
“He’s going to prevail,” Forrest says. “That’s what he does.”
He better. Goff acknowledges he’s never had a Plan B, adding, “That’s not good.” Since high school, it’s been NFL or bust, something his parents say they didn’t know. This doesn’t necessarily add to the pressure of being a QB in L.A. Rather, Goff sees this as an opportunity to mold a team in his image.
Forget red carpets and lavish outfits and photo ops.
This clean slate excites Goff more than anything.
“I have an opportunity to represent this team the way I want to represent it and the way I want people to think of us,” Goff says. “It’s not the other way around: I’m not going to let people react to what I do. I’m going to force what I want the Rams to stand for. People say being the face of a franchise is so stressful, so hard. But I get to show you what I want our team to stand for.”
The answer to that, to him, is simple.
“Not being OK with ‘I lost.’ No. That’s not OK. You think the best teams in the league do that?
“No.”
Don’t you dare call him a Golden State Warriors bandwagoner. At a Novato Chick-fil-A, donning a bright-gold Dubs shirt, Goff name-drops left and right. Adonal Foyle. Speedy Claxton. Troy Murphy. Ike Diogu!
He still owns a retro J-Rich jersey. He’s pals with Steve Kerr’s daughter and keeps in touch with the coach himself. He went to a Warriors basketball camp at eight years old. His favorite player, easily, is Draymond Green. And he’ll rip anyone who refers to Golden State as a “superteam,” ranting that they built primarily through the draft. The Warriors will be the front-runners to win a championship in 2018, 2019 and probably 2020.
Goff will celebrate each title, too.
As for his own team? The expectations feel just as high: “Win the division. Once you do that, anything can happen.” This year’s offense under new head coach Sean McVay, he explains, is more QB-friendly. The two speak regularly and even share texts here at dinner.
And all offseason…all summer…right into Week 1 and beyond, Goff has and will set every precedent. During the spring, he was at the facility each morning at 6:30. He treats quarterbacking as parenting, blistering some teammates for mistakes (like Tyler Higbee), while still feeling out the newcomers (like new No. 1, Robert Woods).
“It’s like having kids, and I’m managing all of them,” Goff says. “Then your kid yells back at you. You say, ‘Run your route,’ and they yell back, ‘Throw the ball where it needs to be!'”
Any temptations in Hollywood and any fears of this new coaching staff canning him any moment never pollute his mind. Distractions are eliminated. Goff is obsessed with one thing and one thing only: setting the standard.
“It’s my team,” Goff says. “I need to treat it like, ‘What would Drew Brees do today? What would Brady do today?'”
Surrounded by kids and parents in the final moments of camp, Goff is barely audible. He tells them all that it’s weird to see his own name on all these shirts—a bit strange considering he could be the face of an entire sport in L.A. Millions of dollars are at stake. Jobs are at stake. His own future is at stake.
For a moment, the crown appears too heavy for Goff. He’s still the youngest starting quarterback in the NFL, after all.
But he knows a turning point is coming. Maybe it’ll be another eyesore of a bruise. A comeback. A stern scolding of a teammate for pounding beers after a loss. Or maybe it’ll be a clutch throw right at a Richard Sherman, a Patrick Peterson. At some point in 2017, Goff must assert himself when all eyes are on him.
As he walks to his car, Goff speaks as if he already knows the outcome. There’s not a blip of hesitancy, let alone doubt, in his voice.
“I’m someone who’s going to fight until I can’t fight anymore,” he says. “I’m not going to quit until they take me off the field. You have to drag me off. I only know one way. I’ve done it in the past. I’ve done it my whole life. I plan to do it with the Rams. I plan on turning things around soon—sooner than later.
“Everyone’s going to see a completely different team this year.”
He’ll need to be the reason why.
August 10, 2017 at 6:27 pm #72194InvaderRamModeratorya know. not that it matters. but he plays the most important position on the nation’s most popular sport. in the nation’s second largest market.
if he can achieve success, he’ll be la’s hottest athlete since kobe. unless kershaw can win a world series. which he possibly could. the dodgers are playing historically well this year. well there’s trout too. but he doesn’t really play in los angeles.
not that it matters.
August 12, 2017 at 6:59 pm #72371znModeratorDeadpool wrote:
And I mentioned this last year. If Goff is struggling going from a pure shotgun offense to a under the center offense. Its a timing and mental thing for him right now. The timing comes from having to take the snap, turn your back on the defense, set your feet, find your wrs and the dbs and make a throw. Not as simple as it seems. And if your lower half isn’t in sync with your upper half, accuracy can be an issue. The mental part comes from having to think his way thru this process.
Holding the ball too long is a product of not recognizing what he is seeing and not processing the info fast enough. He has to get faster at processing and he is smart enough to do it. If he plays tonight watch his footwork and if he gets the ball out on time.
He made some strides last year, but I really don’t think Fisher’s offense did him any favors. But I think he is going to have to make some huge strides this year or some tough decisions will be have to be made.
The way Snead and McVay are constructing this offense, the QB could be the weakest link. And that won’t fly for long. Esp. with a (seemingly) loaded QB draft class.
weak LT – fixed with Whitworth
weak OC – fixed with Sullivan (i remain unconvinced of his back being healthy)
weak WR group – fixed with Woods, Kupp and Watkins
weak TE group – added EverettAugust 12, 2017 at 7:31 pm #72376InvaderRamModeratorThe way Snead and McVay are constructing this offense, the QB could be the weakest link. And that won’t fly for long. Esp. with a (seemingly) loaded QB draft class.
it all hinges on goff. that part makes me nervous. although i do think he can be good enough. eventually. it just might take awhile.
mcvay will know by the end of the season though. i mean he won’t necessarily be there at the end of the season, but mcvay will have seen enough to think that he can eventually be there.
my question is if mcvay decides to switch directions does he draft a qb or does he sign cousins?
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