Early after the trade Mike Silver said he thought that it would be Goff. Perhaps I’m too trusting of Silver, but in my mind the mystery was over at that moment. I haven’t been following many of the other “who will the Rams pick?” stories since. Has there been anyone who has had a strong indication that the Rams were leaning toward Wentz recently?

zn wrote:

If it’s Goff consider the general territory of his skills–in different degrees and ways, it includes players like Ryan and Bulger to people like Warner, Manning, Brady, and Montana.

Those are all good comparisons, from the low end to the high end.

If you were to predict right now which week during the regular season Goff is the Rams starter what would your guess be? Do you buy the argument by some in the media that a team picking a QB at number one – nevermind a team that traded a lot to get there- will be starting the rookie QB week one?

Ourlads (Shonka et al) on Goff

Junior entry. Three-year starter from Kentfield, CA. First-team All Pac-12. Plays in the QB friendly pitch and catch spread “Air Raid” offense. A drop back passer from the shotgun who has good arm strength and knows his way around the pocket. Throws the ball on time and on target with good accuracy over his career. The lanky underclassman helped revitalize the Golden Bear program that had fallen on hard times by starting 37 straight games after hitting the field as a true freshman. The two-time team captain will look the rush pressure in the eye and make the clutch pass. Reacts well to pressure. Knows where he wants to go with the ball and throws the receiver open with good accuracy and timing. Keeps his eyes down the field. No pause in the pocket. GOod pocket presence and feel. Reads progressions. Keeps his feet hot and throws before the receiver is breaks open. Does a good job of changing ball speed and trajectory over the top of defenders. Good ball placement. THe receiver doesn’t have to wait on the ball and is hit in stride to give him a change to run after the catch. A quick snap wrist release with velocity. Steps, throws, and completes passes through small windows in tight areas. At his best when the protection is solid and he can step towards his target and throw. Majors in carving up a defense with short ball control passes from 6-10 yards. Spreads the ball around to multiple receivers who rotate into the huddle in a variety of sub packages. Can make the key throws rolling to his left. Will need to work on his 3-5 and 7-step drops to the trowing point from under center. Goff never played under centre and defense looks a whole lot different when dropping back and making your reads rather than seeing the field from a shotgun formation. The angular passer set 26 Cal records including career marks for passing yards (12 220), passing yards per game (329.7), and touchdown passes (96). He also set a pair of Pac-12 single season records in his final year at Cal when passed for 4719 yards and 43 scores. An eventual starter with the talent to contribute early in his career. As an added bonus, Goff as a pooch punter is a major weapon.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 7 months ago by canadaram.

On MTC on Friday Pat Kirwan said he saw some Drew Brees in Goff.

nittany ram wrote:

North Dakota State isn’t Division II. It’s Division I AA. There’s a big gap between I AA and II. The NFL has many players from I AA programs. Some notable I AA QBs include Phil Simms, Joe Flacco, Steve McNair, Rich Gannon…oh, and Kurt Warner.

Yes, I know. I’m just clinging to his Montana comparison. It’s part of my campaign to force myself to like Goff when he’s inevitably picked by the Rams.

InvaderRam wrote:

if it makes you feel better boylhart has wentz graded as a second rounder.

Yes, I noticed that. I enjoy reading Drew’s profiles.

He likes Lynch a lot. He loved Tebow too.

Here’s what Drew Boylhart has to say about Goff’s strengths. (Mods: I won’t post any more of these in this thread. It’s just part of the healing process for me.)

STRENGTHS
Jared is another quarterback who has improved in every game I have seen him in this year. He has excellent arm talent to make all the throws with touch when needed along with accuracy and velocity that is expected from a top quarterback for the next level. Jared has a very quick release plus quick feet that help him to set up quickly and keep his balance to execute with outstanding accuracy when he throws the ball. He plays with a healthy fear of personal failure that drives him to succeed and improve. He is demanding of the players around him and because of his accuracy and football intelligence, has the respect of his teammates on the field. Jared gets rid of the ball quickly because he is able to read defenses at the college level and look for mismatches in the passing game. He obviously patterns and copies his set ups and drops (from under center) on Peyton Manning’s style and in doing so, has improved dramatically from the first game of this season to the last bowl game. Jared has franchise talent and potential.

Winnbrad wrote:

Any team that doesn’t have a good QB is “desperate” to get one, imo. It’s the nature of the league now.

Yes, that’s exactly how I see it as well.

zn wrote:

I mean look at Romo!

But, Romo’s hurt a lot.

…

Yeah, I was trying to figure out that comment.

Maybe he meant that size doesn’t matter. Even bigger guys like Romo – he’s listed at 230 lbs. – can get hurt. Just guessing.

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000653513/article/rams-topsecret-qb-tour-bred-blockbuster-trade-for-no-1-pick

Rams’ top-secret QB tour bred blockbuster trade for No. 1 pick

Jeff Fisher and Les Snead arrived in Berkeley on a cloudy February morning, and as soon as quarterback Jared Goff began his private workout at California Memorial Stadium — as if on cue — the rain came pouring down like the Andy Dufresne escape scene in “Shawshank Redemption.”

By the end of the former Cal star’s sublime throwing session, all had become clear for the two men deciding the immediate fate of the newly rechristened Los Angeles Rams. And it was that clarity of purpose which, two months later, would trigger the blockbuster trade that shook up the 2016 draft and brought some serious gridiron glitz to Tinseltown.

Having flown to Northern California straight from Fargo, North Dakota — where they’d watched the 2016 draft’s other top quarterbacking prospect, ex-North Dakota State passer Carson Wentz, perform impressively in a similar session — Fisher, the Rams’ veteran head coach, and Snead, the team’s fifth-year general manager, were completing the second and final stop of their under-the-radar, Find a Franchise Quarterback Tour.

They weren’t prepared for the inclement weather, but they weren’t complaining, either. After all, one of the few raps against Goff was his perceived inability to throw a wet ball, a stigma that began early in his freshman season in 2013, when he performed so miserably on a rainy afternoon at Oregon that he was pulled from the game in the first quarter.

Even as Fisher vainly attempted to shield the footballs under his light jacket before handing them to Goff, he understood the beauty of the moment: If throwing a slippery ball were still a legitimate weakness, Goff would surely be exposed.

Instead, as if channeling the artistry of dreadlocked Cal alum Adam Duritz, Goff summoned a performance so tremendous, he might as well have crooned, “I am the Rain King!”

Goff, according to one witness, flat out “ripped it” while throwing to former Cal teammates Trevor Davis and Maurice Harris. “The ball never hit the ground,” said another person who attended the session.

“It was a great opportunity to see him throw a wet ball,” Fisher recalled Thursday morning, a couple of hours after the announcement of a pricey trade with the Tennessee Titans that put the Rams on the clock with the No. 1 overall pick. “We were just going through the process, and he made all the throws, and he was outstanding.”

Whether the Rams use the No. 1 overall selection on Goff, as I believe they will, or call Wentz to the podium in Chicago on April 28, Fisher and Snead already have made one thing obvious: After methodically building a talented defense, a process fueled by the bounty they acquired in their own blockbuster pre-draft trade four years ago, and last year bolstering the running game by selecting star halfback Todd Gurley and a slew of offensive linemen, the Rams can no longer get by with mediocrity at the game’s pivotal position.

They weren’t prepared for the inclement weather, but they weren’t complaining, either. After all, one of the few raps against Goff was his perceived inability to throw a wet ball, a stigma that began early in his freshman season in 2013, when he performed so miserably on a rainy afternoon at Oregon that he was pulled from the game in the first quarter.

Even as Fisher vainly attempted to shield the footballs under his light jacket before handing them to Goff, he understood the beauty of the moment: If throwing a slippery ball were still a legitimate weakness, Goff would surely be exposed.

Instead, as if channeling the artistry of dreadlocked Cal alum Adam Duritz, Goff summoned a performance so tremendous, he might as well have crooned, “I am the Rain King!”

Goff, according to one witness, flat out “ripped it” while throwing to former Cal teammates Trevor Davis and Maurice Harris. “The ball never hit the ground,” said another person who attended the session.

“It was a great opportunity to see him throw a wet ball,” Fisher recalled Thursday morning, a couple of hours after the announcement of a pricey trade with the Tennessee Titans that put the Rams on the clock with the No. 1 overall pick. “We were just going through the process, and he made all the throws, and he was outstanding.”

Whether the Rams use the No. 1 overall selection on Goff, as I believe they will, or call Wentz to the podium in Chicago on April 28, Fisher and Snead already have made one thing obvious: After methodically building a talented defense, a process fueled by the bounty they acquired in their own blockbuster pre-draft trade four years ago, and last year bolstering the running game by selecting star halfback Todd Gurley and a slew of offensive linemen, the Rams can no longer get by with mediocrity at the game’s pivotal position

Speaking of which: With records of 7-8-1, 7-9, 6-10 and 7-9 during their four years in St. Louis, the newly relocated coach and GM understand that they’ll have to step up it up to stay employed in Southern California beyond this season.

So Fisher and Snead, in a strategy they employed as far back as their first season in St. Louis, hit the road and got an up-close-and-personal view of what was out there. And when they loved what they saw in Fargo and Berkeley, they set their sights on the top of the draft.

With the 15th overall selection, Fisher and Snead knew it wouldn’t be easy. Not since 1984 had a team (the Patriots, who came up from 16th to land receiver Irving Fryar) moved up so far to land the first pick. But the Rams had an important chip: an extra second-round pick in 2016, obtained in last year’s trade with the Eagles that sent oft-injured incumbent quarterback Sam Bradford to Philly for Nick Foles. And while Foles’ stint as the Rams’ starting quarterback had been short and inglorious — ultimately, he was supplanted by Case Keenum, who technically still resides atop the L.A. depth chart — that extra second-rounder turned out to be a godsend.

As fate would have it, the Rams’ ownership of that pick — and the Eagles’ lack thereof — may have allowed L.A. to outjockey the Eagles for the Titans’ top pick. The Eagles, according to sources, have a high degree of interest in both quarterbacks, particularly Goff, and were also engaged in talks to trade up in the draft.

Meanwhile the Browns, who hold the No. 2 overall selection, may lose out on the quarterback they covet most — and, in response, might try to trade down to a team interested in acquiring the passer the Rams pass over.

Again, this intriguing scenario is layered with the seeds of past developments: Last March, before trading Bradford to the Eagles, the Rams — according to a high-ranking team source — believed they had a deal in place to send him to Cleveland for a first-round pick, but the Browns backed out the following morning.

Throw in the fact that Fisher closed the deal for the first overall pick with the franchise that employed him as head coach for 17 seasons, and there have been a whole lot of dramatic arcs to this story. And make no mistake: He and Snead are intent on milking the drama for all its worth between now and draft night, with organizational sources sending out conflicting reports of which quarterback the Rams prefer to numerous reporters, a process likely to continue right up until the moment when the Rams are officially on the clock.

Regardless of the noise, Fisher and Snead will get their man — and their immediate futures will likely depend on the young quarterback’s aptitude. For what it’s worth, their bosses (Rams owner Stan Kroenke and COO Kevin Demoff) were absolutely on board with the trade. As one high-ranking Rams official put it in an internal conversation, “We can go with Case Keenum and [second-year backup] Sean Mannion, and if everything breaks right, we can probably be a wild-card team. But we’re not chasing wild cards. We want to go after championships.”

To get to that level, a young man will have to guide them — and something Fisher and Snead saw in Fargo and/or Berkeley two months ago convinced them that there’s at least one quarterback in this draft who can transform their team in a hurry.

“We’re not looking over our shoulders here,” Fisher told me Thursday. “We’re planning for the future, and we’re building this team, and this is the next step. Last year we drafted Todd Gurley, and we drafted [four] offensive linemen. This year, we know what we want, and we’re going after it.”

Rain or shine.

Follow Michael Silver on Twitter @MikeSilver.

Agamemnon wrote:

This is a shrewd move by Fisher: draft a quarterback No. 1 overall, and even if the dude bombs out, he’ll still provide value by serving as Fisher’s human shield, to protect the coach from an overdue firing.

Fisher gets to buy time.

Neither Winston nor Mariota bought any time for their respective head coaches last season.

zn wrote:

I assume you’re joking?
Cause there are some who did take the initial announcement that way.

Yes. Joking… your second sentence explains why.

….GM Les Snead: Keenum will take the 1st snap in OTA’s. Mannion/Foles will compete. Nothing will be settled until we get thru draft.

I can’t believe that Snead just declared Keenum as the Rams starting QB for the next 15 years.

If they think one of the main 3 QBs is worth it, then I am for a trade up. I don’t pretend to know if either Wentz, Lynch or Goff will be worth the investment of picks required in a trade up, but I believe that the Rams need to address the position. I love draft weekend and always want the Rams to have as many picks as possible, and I agree with those who argue that the Rams have several needs that could be addressed in this draft, but this seems like a crucial juncture for the Rams and the QB position.

This move does nothing to change my opinion that the Browns are going QB with their first pick.