one thing i like about goff is his ypa which was 8.9 last year. and it wasn’t pumped up by short safe passes and an extremely high completion percentage. to me that tells me he was throwing a lot of downfield passes and not just playing it safe.

i’ve had at least one friend tell me did take a lot of risks at cal which can be both good and bad.

he ended up putting up some good numbers against them, but it was all from behind. like behind by a lot.

so i don’t know what to make of that. on one hand, it wasn’t exactly in a competitive situation. then again. the trojans could just tee off on him. so. he was under some real duress.

i honestly don’t care how often they throw it long. i just want them to be proficient at the mid range passing game. although passing it long might open things up mid range. so i guess it’s good to see they’re throwing it long. but then. the mid range passing game still sucked so…

not a wide receiver. but my friend who’s a big ucla fan likes thomas duarte. not much of a blocker but can really catch the ball.

solid athletic numbers. long 33″ arms and 10″ hands.

my guess is that when goff has time to set up and use his lower body to step into his throw, he can throw with velocity. when he’s got a pass rush on him and he can’t use his lower body as much and has to strong arm it, the velocity goes down. a guy like carson wentz, has the luxury of not having to set up like a goff does and can basically strong arm it with velocity. that’s where i think goff has to work on his upper body strength which he apparently didn’t do while at cal due to a shoulder injury. though his coaches are saying this is something he can and will work on in the future.

zn wrote:

InvaderRam wrote:

so i don’t know if i’m missing something, but his arm seems to be on par with most nfl prospects.

IMO that’s because an mph metric can’t distinguish between a very quick release and a strong arm.

Goff has a quick release, not all that strong an arm though not a bad one by any means.

Bulger was very similar. Didn’t have a Wentz-strong arm, but had a quick release, and as a result threw a fantastic line-drive deep out.

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but my understanding is it’s not measuring release. it’s measuring how fast a ball gets from point a to point b.

for example. nick foles threw 57 mph. my understanding is he does not have a quick release.

if it is goff, do people here think we might see the rams go to a more fast tempo offense like they tried to earlier in bradford’s career? will they try to incorporate some of the air raid offense into their own playbook? did cal use the running backs in the passing game?

i think i saw jalen ramsey duck out of the camera shot at the 0:45 mark of the carson wentz interview…

zn wrote:

InvaderRam wrote:

a gurley goff backfield has the potential to be special. i like the idea of them growing together as a duo.

even without pro bowl receivers, the offense should be in good shape with those two.

can’t think of many backfields with that much potential and youth on their side. tampa bay and oakland come to mind. the seahawks had a great duo in wilson and lynch. wide receivers didn’t have to be great with that backfield. greg robinson better be excited about blocking for those two. young offensive line jelling at the right time?

of course this is all just potential at this point cuz we don’t know how good goff is. and only an inkling of how good gurley can be.

i know people are going to disagree strongly with me. but that backfield is also very marketable in a city where you need a main attraction. not saying this is THE reason they did it, but it sure is a great side benefit to have.

A lot of people are making the switch to Goff.

I am still in “would be fine with either one” land.

yeah, and i totally understand that. wentz is also a great prospect.

either way it’s a good choice. and while i like carson wentz types more, i also am a big fan of drew brees. and when someone mentioned the comparison, i went to look at drew brees highlights and it just clicked for me. he reminds me so much of drew brees. the footwork and the mobility.

plus. gurley goff just rolls off the tongue. it sounds so right. gurley wentz? sounds awkward. haha!

yeah. something makes me think keenum would make a great coach someday.

the more and more i think about the more i want goff. i’ve done a complete 180, and i don’t think it’s gonna change. i just like him more as a passer. just youtube clips, but his feet are always moving. he seems to be able to throw on the run. i like the comparison to drew brees. i see some drew brees there. doesn’t have brees’ gargantuan hands, but he does have his feet.

but i also think his age is a big plus for me. he’s still only 21 years old which is really young. still has so much more potential to fill out physically. i see this working for him in two ways.

first he’ll be able to withstand more punishment. he’s already durable. did injure his shoulder in 2013 but didn’t miss any games and didn’t miss a beat. but adding more mass should help in that area. and let me say. wentz’s injury history concerns me. he was injured in high school and missed out on a year of development and missed significant time in 2015, so i do not take that lightly. i think his playing style might have somthing to do with that too, and i worry that it will follow him in the pros.

second i think it’ll help with his overall arm strength. not that it wasn’t strong enough, but he might be able to increase it a couple ticks. being only 21 his body is still developing i would imagine. not just his arm strength but his core strength. i think it’s normal for qbs that young to see some increases in arm strength as they get older.

and also just mentally can develop a lot more. he’s supposedly a freak about his mechanics. obsessed with his footwork. he’s already ahead of wentz in this area and having this be second nature to him is more important than learning a pro offense. i don’t know. that’s just my guess. but learning a playbook. learning play action. learning to play under center. is less than difficult to master than keeping your fundamentals from breaking down during the chaos of playing in that pocket. being so young, he can also just fine tune the small details rather than having a complete overhaul which is what wentz might require.

i don’t know. just thinking out loud. i might be totally offbase. but that’s what i’m thinking right now.

one thing about wentz. i thought he was playing under the same coaching staff the whole five years, but apparently i was wrong.

the defensive coordinator was promoted to head coach, and as far as i know, the offensive coaching staff was completely turned over for the 2014 season. so it’s quite possible that wentz had to learn a whole new system in 2014 – his first season starting. that would make his last two years that much more impressive although he was at least familiar with his teammates.

so that would be 1 year of starting experience in high school and then 2 years of starting in college with a new coaching staff and quite possibly a new offensive system. although i just looked it up. the previous coordinator vigen also ran a pro style offense. how different it was from the 2014 and 2015 offense i don’t know.

i also thought this excerpt was interesting from the above article.

Farrar: I think they’re both projects, and I wouldn’t start either one of them their first years in the NFL. I don’t think that first-year NFL quarterback exists in this draft class.

I get the thing about Wentz’s limited starts, but I would turn that around and point to how well he’s developed in such a short time. I mean, he had one season at the position in high school, and a couple of years as a backup, and then, there he was. I think that speaks to a natural affinity for the position. And I don’t buy the learning curve argument to the degree that it’s sold. If you watch the Wentz episode of Gruden’s QB Camp, there are a ton of passing concepts in North Dakota State’s offense that are pro-ready, just under different verbiages. Wentz ran multiple play-action concepts out of the backfield. He dealt with a full route tree. He made more than one read. He’s not as good at the read thing as Goff is at this point, but I have no doubt that he can get there, and NFL teams regularly adjust their reads to fit the abilities of their young quarterbacks.

I’ve talked to people in the know who have told me that Wentz’s reads are actually harder than Goff’s, so there’s that. I think he’s better at throwing to the point at which the receiver has the best opportunity to catch the ball, and the defender is at a disadvantage. I think he throws with anticipation more often and more consistently. Does he trust his arm too much at times? Sure, but he also makes some dynamite throws into tight windows. If I’m a coach, I’d rather have to manage that ability than have to try and create it out of whatever I have. Wentz takes more time to process, but he also makes up for it with a very quick release. Get him up to speed on the processing side, and there’s more to work with.

Where I agree with you completely on Wentz is that he’s not yet a consistent thrower on the run. He doesn’t square his shoulders to the target and has to make too many adjustments as a result, especially on contested boundary throws. That’s something he needs to sort out. As far as the simplicity of the enemy defenses, one could easily make the same argument about Goff. He regularly faced base nickel and dime defenses with little in the way of adjustments because the offense was so wide-open. I’ll also posit that Wentz’s strength of opponent debit can be negated to a large degree by the guys he was throwing to, and the guys who were blocking for him. When you isolate the players, I think Wentz has a higher floor AND a higher ceiling.

either way they go they should probable let the guy develop anyway. neither guy is going to be ready day 1 anyway.

i wonder if dallas knows in advance who the rams will pick.

i’m actually starting to think goff should be the pick.