Goff getting outside coaching help + other things Goff

hopefully, he continues to get stronger. too many times he would get tossed around like a rag doll. he’s just too weak right now.

and get him pierre garcon.

i like what i’m reading about him in the offseason so far though.

Building Jared Goff

Albert Breer:

http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2017/02/23/aj-bouye-nfl-free-agents-houston-texans

Notice I didn’t say “rebuilding,” because that’s not what the Sean McVay-led Rams believe that their rising sophomore quarterback needs. No, Goff just needs to be built, period, as an NFL quarterback. He came into the league last year as a raw prospect, and that’s still where he is.

The positives? The initial look that the staff has taken at his tape has shown that Goff stood in there behind a deficient offensive line, and displayed some toughness, which was apparent during a similarly rough year he endured as a freshman at Cal in 2013. Also, he has a clean, natural stroke as a passer, something that’s challenging to create if a quarterback doesn’t have it coming into the NFL. And he’s accurate and can make the throws now required in the offense that McVay and offensive coordinator Matt LaFleur are installing. That said, he has a long way to go to become the kind of quarterback that Kirk Cousins was for McVay or Matt Ryan was for LaFleur last year.

The process for Goff will start in the next few weeks when he begins work with renowned quarterback coaches Adam Dedeaux and Tom House. It will start with what, from a technical standpoint, is called “sequencing.” The idea is to align Goff’s shoulder turn and his torque so it’s one clean motion, and tie his feet together with his hips and his shoulders. And the overriding theme here is to create consistency and balance in how Goff throws the ball, which should help him both in a clean pocket and when things break down around him. Another improvement that the Rams and the QB coaches are looking for is better core strength. That’s one area where Ryan made huge leaps with Dedeaux and House last offseason, and LaFleur saw the benefits of it in the quarterback making throws he couldn’t previously.

The other side of Goff being raw is within the mental part of the game—he came from a pure spread in Berkeley—and the Rams will have to wait until April to see how well he can take the new offense from the classroom to the grass. But as the new coaches see it, there’s plenty to like, and the feeling is Goff will have a better environment to learn, after last year playing in an offense devoid of an identity and without bedrocks for the then-rookie quarterback to fall back on.

Rams GM insists moving up to draft Jared Goff was right move and would do it again
Goff started just seven games and didn’t do much to make many believers think he is a star in waiting

Pete Prisco

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/rams-gm-insists-moving-up-to-draft-jared-goff-was-right-move-and-would-do-it-again/

INDIANAPOLIS — Almost a year after trading a bevy of picks to the Tennessee Titans to draft quarterback Jared Goff with the first pick in last April’s NFL Draft, Los Angeles Rams general manager Les Snead said here this week that he would make the same move all over again.
Even though Goff started just seven games and didn’t do much to make many believers think he is a star in waiting, Snead is emphatic that the team made the right decision and would still do it again. We would expect him to say that, but Snead laid out some of the reasons why.
“Yes, no doubt,” Snead said during a break here at the NFL Scouting Combine. “Last year we were sitting at No 15 (in the first round) and we knew we had to find a long-term starter. We then identified Jared and we liked Carson (Wentz) too. I always say this about the calculus equation. Needing one is part of the equation. Identifying one is another part. But the toughest part is how do you acquire that guy. We found a way and decided to do it. That’s why we made the move.”
Snead said the team also looked at this year’s draft potential and realized they had to make a move last season, rather than wait. That’s why they gave up a No. 15 last year, this year’s first (No. 5 overall) and a handful of other picks to move up to the top spot.
As it turns out, this year’s quarterback class isn’t a strong one, so it made sense. Would you rather have Goff or Clemson’s DeShaun Watson or North Carolina’s Mitch Trubisky?
I’d rather have Goff, which is why the Rams making the move was the right one.\

Yet there are those around the league who wonder if Goff can be the guy for the long haul. Goff lost all seven of his starts and completed 54.7-percent of his passes with five touchdowns and seven interceptions. That’s bad accuracy, no matter if he’s a rookie or not.
It didn’t help that the Rams’ offensive line was a disaster, running back Todd Gurley struggled and the outside receivers were little more than average. The Rams finished 3-13 and coach Jeff Fisher was fired during the season.
“There was adversity, road blocks, hindering type issues,” Snead said. “But it was the first step for him to becoming a franchise quarterback. He didn’t blink. He didn’t mope. He didn’t shake his confidence. We saw a lot of what we saw at Cal in college, but what we didn’t know was when things went bad how would he handle it. And none of that shook him.”
Now Goff has a new coach and a new system. Former Washington Redskins offensive coordinator Sean McVay takes over as coach, and he is considered one of the bright offensive minds in the league. That should help Goff, but the team needs to get more pieces around him.
“Once we get Jared in the building, it’s going to be about teaching our system,” McVay said. “Seeing how he processes things, and he’s able to handle the above-the-neck information and then be able to translate it to grass once we get on the field. You see the traits. You see the characteristics. I am really excited to how he retains information, how it translates to the grass. But very excited about Jared and some of the things we’ve seen from him on tape.”

Goff has spent time this offseason working with Tom House, who has worked with a lot of NFL passers on motion and mechanics. House works with Tom Brady, so it has to help Goff.
The next step will be to spend time with McVay, but league rules prevent that from happening until later this month. The big jump for Goff this season will be getting through his progressions better. As a rookie, quarterbacks tend to get to the first or the second, but not the third or the fourth. You can’t win consistently in the league without getting to the third and fourth progression.
“He definitely got to two, but not three or four,” Snead said. “Those things are evolving. But his big thing will be calling protections at the line of scrimmage. Sean is a big believer in calling protections at the line of scrimmage. That’s a big pat of what he needs to do. He didn’t do that in college. He did very little of that last year. That’s something he has to work on.”
Even so, there is no remorse for Snead.
“No, none,” he said. “We looked at a lot of factors and made the move. We are happy we did.”
Time will tell, but judging by what’s in this year’s draft class, I tend to agree.

McVay Developing Improvement Plan for Goff

Myles Simmons

http://www.therams.com/news-and-events/article-1/McVay-Developing-Improvement-Plan-for-Goff/f83ab745-5258-4263-83ed-a77509a7d1d0

INDIANAPOLIS — A year ago, Jared Goff was in the same position as this year’s incoming corp of quarterbacks on Saturday — performing on-field drills at the NFL Combine to impress the league’s many decision-makers.

Now, Goff has seven games of NFL experience under his belt and has been working with noted private instructor, Tom House, to improve before the Rams’ offseason program begins in April. At the same time, Goff’s new head coach, Sean McVay, is putting together a plan to further his development.

“One of the things you appreciate about Jared is he’s going about it in a way that he is working with Tom House and those guys, who have a lot of respect in terms of fundamentals, the technique of the position,” McVay said on Thursday. “Once we get Jared in the building it’s going to be about teaching him our system, seeing how he processes things, how he’s able to handle the above-the-neck information and then be able to translate it to the grass once we get out on the field in Phase 2 in the OTAs.”

Goff had his share of struggles in the 2016 season, completing 54.6 percent of his passes for 1,089 yards with five touchdowns and seven interceptions. While there were myriad factors, some of Goff’s performance may be attributed to the significant adjustment from his Cal’s system to the 2016 Rams offense.

“When you do go from Bear Raid, spread — whatever you want to call it — it is different than what we normally do at this level and that’s just going to take re-wiring your central nervous system,” general manager Les Snead said on Thursday. “A lot of times, you’re going from two ski’s to snowboarding. You’re going to be able to snowboard at some point, but the first time you go down that mountain it’s going to be a little different. Last year was the first step in that.”

Realistically, that is becoming a more pressing issue throughout the league, as college and professional offenses evolve in somewhat diverging ways.

“One of the things that’s interesting when you really watch a lot of the college tape is these guys are almost exclusively in the shotgun,” McVay said. “Some of the pass concepts are kind of one-to-two reads where it might not be pure progression. And when you want to try to evaluate these guys, playing underneath the center, with the play-action game with the five- and seven-step drop where it might be dispersing the field or certain coverage reads, it is a little bit tougher to project.”

“I think it’s going to take patience with QB’s, but also wide receivers, even offensive linemen, and even running backs,” Snead said. “Because now you’ve got running backs lining up beside the QB and they run sideways, whereas in the NFL a lot of times they’re behind the QB running north and south. It’s seeping over to the defense too. We’re going to have to be more patient with these young kids coming out.”

These issues make it that much more important to surround a young quarterback with strong instructors. To that end, all of McVay, offensive coordinator Matt LaFleur and quarterbacks coach Greg Olson have plenty of experience developing quarterbacks.

Asked specifically about Olson this week, McVay called it “extremely important” to get him on staff in L.A.

“I think he’s a great communicator. Great teacher,” McVay said of Olson. “Really does a great job developing those relationships with the players that he’s been around. And he’s called plays for a long time. He’s called plays longer than I have. And he’s going to be a great resource and a mentor and that I’ll be able to go to for guidance.”

If there’s a frustrating element to creating Goff’s improvement plan, it’s that players can’t receive coaching from the new staff until the offseason program begins. That comes from the rules and regulations of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, enacted in 2011. Because of that, any interaction between McVay and Goff is essentially limited to conversational pleasantries until early April.

“Especially with that quarterback position, with how much there’s a mental approach, being able to learn new information — how am I going to be able to communicate play-calls in the huddle — there’s a lot of things that need to be done in a short amount of time,” McVay said. “That’s why it’s going to be very important for us to maximize that when we are able to get those guys in the building.”

Still, McVay has been encouraged from what he’s learned about Goff through his evaluations so far, saying he does see some similar traits between last year’s first-round pick and Washington quarterback Kirk Cousins.

“When you really look at some of the things that allowed us to have success in Washington, I think it was getting a bunch of different guys involved — using the width and the depth of the field in the pass game to make the defense defend every blade of grass,” McVay said. “And I think there are some things when you try to look at a quarterback, what you value, both of those guys possess those skills and traits.”

“And that’s why you’re interested and intrigued to get Jared in the building,” he continued. “How is he going to process our offense? How does he handle the verbiage — being able to communicate in the huddle and kind of command that huddle and that respect of his teammates? But just from a natural thrower, the toughness, some of those things that we really value — you definitely see that in both of those guys.”

And so while Goff’s development will be a process, it’s one that is already being meticulously planned out in order to give him the best chance for success both in 2017 and beyond.

“It’s a day-by-day process, like we talked about, and you see the traits, you see the characteristics,” McVay said. “But [we’re] very excited about Jared and some of the things we’ve seen on tape from him.”

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