A while back I wrote a post about How Jared Goff graded for 2016 and made people mad by just referring to my site and having a pay wall on the information. I ended up attaching the information to this site to make up for it. Hopefully no bad feelings. I have finished grading every QB for the 2016 season and I am in the process of writing up a post on my site for each QB as I count them down. Jared Goff did rank last but I don't think that makes him the worst QB in the league. Here is what I wrote so that you don't have to go to my site to see it.
Goff was severely held back by his surrounding cast, so I will not make any declarations of what kind of QB he will be. The Rams just weren’t very good at anything when it came to offense. They couldn’t block, they couldn’t run, they were too vanilla with play design and as the season progressed the receivers dropped more passes. The team couldn’t even run screen plays very well to at least chalk up some cheap yards for Goff. Penalties, dropped passes, ineffective screen passes that lost yardage and a poor running game consistently put Goff in bad 3rd down situations and made it hard for him to succeed. That led to sacks from holding the ball because Goff wanted to get first downs. That is where I saw the most consistent problem with Goff. He didn’t check the ball down on 3rd and long when better options weren’t available. When that happens, the QB receives a slightly negative grade because checking the ball down is always better than a sack. Brady does it well and it leads to plenty of drive extensions. I feel like I gave Goff these types of grades more than any other QB. To be fair, it is most likely that the Rams still wouldn’t have succeeded because of how bad they were and the yardage needed in many instances but it is still on the QB to at least give his team a chance.
Ultimately, Goff wasn’t as bad as people, nor this grade suggest he was. I feel like he graded so poorly because his team severely limited his opportunities and then he didn’t take advantage of the few opportunities that he did have. To show this in action, I will give examples of 2 different situations. QB ‘A’ has 10 drives with 5 of them ending without negative influence from his team. He leads 3 touchdown drives but is at fault for 2 drives with bad passes on 3rd down. That would be around a 0.46 drive rating if the team was balanced in terms of run and pass. QB ‘B’ has 10 drives with 3 of them ending without negative influence from his team. He leads 1 touchdown drive but was at fault for 2 drives with bad passes on 3rd down. That would be a .03 drive rating if the 1 scoring drive was balanced. Both QB’s made mistakes that ended 2 drives but QB ‘A’ had 2 other opportunities that were conducive to success and that allowed him to have a much better game. This is where Goff’s grade is hurt the most as he was by far the worst QB in drive rating. There are different reasons for a poor drive rating. It can be that the QB played poorly, made game killing mistakes, wasn’t very influential to his team’s success or because he had a limited amount of opportunities and just didn’t take advantage of the opportunities he had. With Goff, it was because of limited opportunities because of how bad the team was around him.
Since Goff’s season was so bad, people looked for faults in Goff rather than accepting that his team wasn’t that good. The most frustrating thing I heard was during the Patriots game. The announcers claimed that Belichick said that Goff stares at the rush, so the Patriots were going to go after him. I had not noticed that at all so I’m not sure where that assessment came from. The Patriots certainly did go after Goff but I think it’s because the Rams were so inept at picking up the rush and not necessarily because of Goff looking at the rush. There was 1 play during the game where they backed up the claim of Goff watching the rush. Of course, the rusher was instantly in Goff’s face and he was trying to avoid the guy. I’m not sure that is the same as a guy that fails to get rid of the ball because he is worried about where a non-existent rush is coming from or a guy that does a poor job of moving in a pocket where room is available. The funny thing; I graded Tom Brady after Goff and I saw him stare at the rush on multiple occasions. I saw it from other QB’s too. Just because you see a guy do something 1 time, doesn’t mean it is a flaw. It must be a consistent issue, to be considered a flaw. I never saw Goff have an issue with staring at the rush enough to consider it a flaw.
While Goff was the lowest graded QB, I have the wherewithal to understand that there was too much that he had to overcome because of the team he played on. Especially for a guy that had a lot to learn about the pro game in the first place. I think he will improve as he develops and the team around him becomes more talented than it was last year, which isn’t very hard. Based on the games that I graded of him in college, he showed great ability to play under pressure and made plays downfield against it. That should be able to translate to the NFL unless he just isn’t smart enough to understand the pro game. That is the biggest question he needs to answer.
I would be happy to provide a link to my site if people want to follow along for the rest of the rankings but I won't do it without permission. I can also provide a rankings list on here if that is preferred.
Goff was severely held back by his surrounding cast, so I will not make any declarations of what kind of QB he will be. The Rams just weren’t very good at anything when it came to offense. They couldn’t block, they couldn’t run, they were too vanilla with play design and as the season progressed the receivers dropped more passes. The team couldn’t even run screen plays very well to at least chalk up some cheap yards for Goff. Penalties, dropped passes, ineffective screen passes that lost yardage and a poor running game consistently put Goff in bad 3rd down situations and made it hard for him to succeed. That led to sacks from holding the ball because Goff wanted to get first downs. That is where I saw the most consistent problem with Goff. He didn’t check the ball down on 3rd and long when better options weren’t available. When that happens, the QB receives a slightly negative grade because checking the ball down is always better than a sack. Brady does it well and it leads to plenty of drive extensions. I feel like I gave Goff these types of grades more than any other QB. To be fair, it is most likely that the Rams still wouldn’t have succeeded because of how bad they were and the yardage needed in many instances but it is still on the QB to at least give his team a chance.
Ultimately, Goff wasn’t as bad as people, nor this grade suggest he was. I feel like he graded so poorly because his team severely limited his opportunities and then he didn’t take advantage of the few opportunities that he did have. To show this in action, I will give examples of 2 different situations. QB ‘A’ has 10 drives with 5 of them ending without negative influence from his team. He leads 3 touchdown drives but is at fault for 2 drives with bad passes on 3rd down. That would be around a 0.46 drive rating if the team was balanced in terms of run and pass. QB ‘B’ has 10 drives with 3 of them ending without negative influence from his team. He leads 1 touchdown drive but was at fault for 2 drives with bad passes on 3rd down. That would be a .03 drive rating if the 1 scoring drive was balanced. Both QB’s made mistakes that ended 2 drives but QB ‘A’ had 2 other opportunities that were conducive to success and that allowed him to have a much better game. This is where Goff’s grade is hurt the most as he was by far the worst QB in drive rating. There are different reasons for a poor drive rating. It can be that the QB played poorly, made game killing mistakes, wasn’t very influential to his team’s success or because he had a limited amount of opportunities and just didn’t take advantage of the opportunities he had. With Goff, it was because of limited opportunities because of how bad the team was around him.
Since Goff’s season was so bad, people looked for faults in Goff rather than accepting that his team wasn’t that good. The most frustrating thing I heard was during the Patriots game. The announcers claimed that Belichick said that Goff stares at the rush, so the Patriots were going to go after him. I had not noticed that at all so I’m not sure where that assessment came from. The Patriots certainly did go after Goff but I think it’s because the Rams were so inept at picking up the rush and not necessarily because of Goff looking at the rush. There was 1 play during the game where they backed up the claim of Goff watching the rush. Of course, the rusher was instantly in Goff’s face and he was trying to avoid the guy. I’m not sure that is the same as a guy that fails to get rid of the ball because he is worried about where a non-existent rush is coming from or a guy that does a poor job of moving in a pocket where room is available. The funny thing; I graded Tom Brady after Goff and I saw him stare at the rush on multiple occasions. I saw it from other QB’s too. Just because you see a guy do something 1 time, doesn’t mean it is a flaw. It must be a consistent issue, to be considered a flaw. I never saw Goff have an issue with staring at the rush enough to consider it a flaw.
While Goff was the lowest graded QB, I have the wherewithal to understand that there was too much that he had to overcome because of the team he played on. Especially for a guy that had a lot to learn about the pro game in the first place. I think he will improve as he develops and the team around him becomes more talented than it was last year, which isn’t very hard. Based on the games that I graded of him in college, he showed great ability to play under pressure and made plays downfield against it. That should be able to translate to the NFL unless he just isn’t smart enough to understand the pro game. That is the biggest question he needs to answer.
I would be happy to provide a link to my site if people want to follow along for the rest of the rankings but I won't do it without permission. I can also provide a rankings list on here if that is preferred.
