informal poll – sign Goff to an extension now or next year

JackPMiller wrote:

If correct, we gave Goff the fifth year option, not sure how it works with that, but I would sign the extension, because if correct, this year & next years fifth year option is already done, so the extension would not take place until 2021 either way.

That might be true. But maybe it’s possible, if they wanted, to undo the 5th year option and just start a new contract extension as of next year. But I don’t really know the technicalities on that.

from: Ranking NFL QB commitment: How married all 32 teams are to their starters

Dan Graziano

http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/26744212/ranking-nfl-qb-commitment-how-married-all-32-teams-their-starters

22. Los Angeles Rams
Starter: Jared Goff | Signed through: 2020
Tier: On the verge of commitment | Ranking in tier: No. 1

Contract: Four-year, $27.938 million, fully guaranteed contract signed in June 2016, plus a 2020 team option worth $22.783 million that was exercised in May 2019.

The fifth-year options on 2016 rookie deals are guaranteed only for injury until the start of the 2020 league year. That means, if Goff is healthy and the Rams don’t want him after 2019, they can rescind the option and make him a free agent at no cost to themselves.

Realistically, Goff is in line for a multiyear extension that would supplant the 2020 option year and keep him in Los Angeles for the long term. And the Rams have a little bit of history of doing those extensions early, as they did with former first-round picks such as Todd Gurley II and Robert Quinn, each of whom got extended in the summer before his fourth season. So watch out for a possible Goff deal this offseason that would move him into a different tier.

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from Rams, Jared Goff rank 22nd on ESPN’s QB commitment list

Cameron DaSilva

Rams, Jared Goff rank 22nd on ESPN's QB commitment list

ESPN’s Dan Graziano, for one, ranked Goff and the Rams 22nd on his list of how committed each team is to its quarterback. That’s below the Raiders and Derek Carr, the Titans and Marcus Mariota, and the Bucs’ commitment to Jameis Winston.

zn wrote:

Mike Florio: “I’m very skeptical about Jared Goff. I would not be surprised if he doesn’t get a second contract with the Rams.”

Vincent Bonsignore@VinnyBonsignore
The notion the #Rams might let Jared Goff walk in order to start all over with a younger, cheaper replacement is absurdity of phenomenal levels. I explain why he’s Sean McVay’s guy and the #Rams QB of the present and future here

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Why the Rams won’t let Jared Goff walk

Vincent Bonsignore

https://theathletic.com/994508/2019/05/24/why-the-rams-wont-let-jared-goff-walk/

Only two NFL quarterbacks started at least 15 games in each of the past two seasons and finished with a passer rating over 100 while leading their teams to consecutive division championships.

One, Drew Brees, is a future Hall of Famer.

The other, 24-year-old Jared Goff, has presided over the winningest team in the NFL the past two years, its highest-scoring offense, and is coming off a Super Bowl appearance.

At some point over the next decade or so, Brees rightfully will be fitted for a gold jacket signifying his stature as one of the greatest quarterbacks ever to set foot on an NFL field.

As for Goff, well, if you believe the astoundingly lazy observations emanating from the furthest reaches of the NFL stratosphere, he’s little more than a product of the system he plays in and no sure bet to be re-signed to a lucrative long-term extension befitting his place among the best quarterbacks in the game.

From those same corners of the NFL there is speculation that Sean McVay and the Rams are actually considering letting Goff walk at the end of his contract in order to pluck from thin air a younger, less expensive replacement for whom McVay will conjure up all his mystical and magical powers in order to seamlessly insert him into the lineup without the Rams missing a beat.

Because, you know, system quarterback.

The level of absurdity is almost too phenomenal to take seriously.

But it’s also seeped too deeply into public consciousness to let go without comment.

First things first, the Rams are not actually pondering a plan in which they decline to re-sign Goff when his rookie contract expires after the 2020 season. On the contrary, they are planning and preparing their landscape for a world in which Goff is making franchise-caliber money and surrounded by a supporting cast strong enough to ensure playoff contention for the foreseeable future.

Yes, it will be a salary-cap challenge fitting a franchise quarterback contract into the payroll of a championship-caliber roster. But one for which the Rams are already formulating a game plan.

It will require shrewd drafting, especially in the mid-to-late rounds, to continually come up with young, reasonably-priced developmental players that they can eventually rely on to produce. It will entail well-researched and disciplined thinking, knowing when to let veteran free agents walk in order to recoup compensation picks, who to reel in from the free-agent market and when to peddle off draft picks in order acquire instant-impact veteran help.

But given how eight of the last 12 Super Bowl participants did so while their quarterbacks were being paid top-quarterback money, there is ample precedent for constructing championship-caliber rosters around highly paid quarterbacks.

The greater challenge would be letting Goff walk just as he’s reaching the prime of his career and starting all over again with a young, unproven replacement.

It’s presumption at its highest order.

As if identifying and acquiring top tier — or even capable — young quarterbacks is no more complicated than picking up a steak at your local grocery store and then firing up the barbecue and grilling it.

As quarterback gurus and offensive masterminds go, McVay is one hell of a pitmaster. But even he’d tell you he benefits as much from Goff’s talent as Goff is emblematic of the system and guidance McVay’s provided him.

And while the two go hand-in-hand, this is no chicken or egg argument. McVay’s system goes only as far as the skill and expertise of the quarterback operating it. And in Goff, he’s got a top-10 NFL quarterback still young enough to surge higher.

Which brings us back to another head-scratcher — the notion that, because McVay inherited Goff upon taking over the Rams in 2017, he might be itching to let him walk in order to bring in his “own” guy.

Again, pure absurdity.

In every conversation I’ve had with Sean McVay he’s made it abundantly clear that the opportunity to work with a young, talented quarterback like Goff is what made the Rams job so attractive to him in the first place.

If you know anything about Mcvay, you know he leaves no stone unturned during the homework process of studying an opponent. Back in late 2016 when the Rams job became a possibility, McVay did a deep dive into Goff, who was drafted first overall the previous April. Upon completion, McVay wasn’t just convinced Goff was a quarterback talent worthy of hitching his future; McVay could hardly wait to get started.

In fact, the detailed, long-range plan McVay laid out to the Rams on how he’d go about helping Goff reach his potential blew the Rams away. There were many valid reasons they tabbed McVay as their new coach, but his vision for getting the most out of Goff might have been the most compelling.

Does any of that sound like a guy who is thinking about letting Goff walk in order to get his own guy in place?

All of which begs one question?

Who is really behind this nonsense?

I can assure you it’s not the Rams, who can hardly contain their delight in hitting massive home runs with the drafting of Goff and the hiring of McVay to create a coach/quarterback pairing they believe sets them up as well any franchise in the NFL.

Given the Goff and McVay dynamic, the young core they already have in place, their attractive home base in Los Angeles and the world-class new stadium opening in 2020, they believe they are on the cusp of a long run.

So where, then?

Some of it is the lingering perception of Goff after the disastrous rookie season he endured. Remember, the Rams gave up six draft picks to move from the 15th pick overall all the way to the top of the 2016 draft to select Goff, only for him to stumble badly in the seven games he started that season.

But no one with any real NFL clout pins those struggles on Goff. Especially after he rebounded by throwing for a combined 8,492 yards and 60 touchdowns the last two years while leading his team to two straight division titles and a berth in last season’s Super Bowl.

Goff was the victim of bad coaching and a lousy offensive line and absolutely no help at wide receiver. There isn’t a quarterback around who would have survived the mess Jeff Fisher created that year, let alone a 22-year-old rookie.

But Goff’s struggles left such an indelible image, people haphazardly wrote him off as a bust. Some of those same critics are slow to come around. And every time there is a hint of struggle — like the way Goff played in the Super Bowl or how the Chicago Bears and Philadelphia Eagles slowed him down in early December — they are quick to re-emerge with their outdated takes.

As someone in the NFL texted me recently — half-kiddingly — “Goff should sue Fisher for malpractice, as it has always haunted him and people want to go back to their initial conclusion that he sucks.”

Never mind how well Goff played to get the Rams to the Super Bowl, or how he outdueled Patrick Mahomes, Brees, Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson through the course of the season while hanging more than 28 points on all of them and leading the Rams to a 4-1 record.

Go figure.

Some of it is the esoteric esteem with which McVay is now held given how he quickly turned one of the worst franchises in the NFL into one of the best, and how he completely turned Goff around from bust to Super Bowl quarterback almost overnight.

It’s all happened so quickly and powerfully the assumption is McVay can do the same for any quarterback.

Maybe he can.

But he’s much too smart — and even less arrogant — to think he can simply discard the sure thing he has in Goff, and everything they’ve invested and built together, to start all over again with a cheaper version.

Goff is McVay’s guy.

And he’s the Rams quarterback. For now, and the future.