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By Chris Chase
http://www.foxsports.com/nfl/story/...oes-that-mean-for-no-1-pick-jared-goff-100216
The Los Angeles Rams are 3-1, and if you saw that coming after the team's disastrous 28-0 season-opening loss on Monday Night Football, then, regrettably, I have to declare you, sir or madam, a liar. It doesn't matter if you had a crystal ball. You'd have just thought it was scuffed. If doesn't matter if you're Marty McFly and had a copy of Gray's Sports Almanac. You'd assume it was a typo. Heck, I'm looking at the standings right now and still can't believe it. The Los Angeles Rams are 3-1, and they're doing it all without the No. 1 pick in this year's draft, quarterback Jared Goff, during a year in which rookie quarterbacks are off to prolific and historic starts.
It would have been unbelievable enough to predict the Rams' start at the beginning of the season, but after that loss to the 49ers, in which the team was unwatchable, there was legitimate (if ridiculous) belief that the Rams could be bad enough to flirt with 0-16. They had 185 total yards. Quarterback Case Keenum had 3.7 yards per pass attempt (the worst QBs in the NFL hover around 6.5 ypa). L.A. had more penalty yards (100) than rushing yards (65). It had seven drives of three-and-out, punted 10 times and didn't run a single play from inside the red zone.
The last time a team had been shut out in Week 1 was 2009. It was these same Rams (playing in St. Louis, of course), and they lost to a division rival by a familiar score of 28-0. That squad went 1-15. At that moment less than three weeks ago, there were exactly two things to be excited about if you were a new Rams fan: that Los Angeles had a football team again and that sometimes it would break out those sweet throwbacks.
And then, without warning, came a win in Week 2 over the perennial power Seattle Seahawks.
Yeah, but it was a weird game won by the bizarre score of 9-3 (just the 11th time a game had finished that way since the merger). Maybe the Seahawks weren't any good (they'd only defeated the lowly Dolphins 12-10 in Week 1), and it's not exactly as if three field goals and nine total points in two games is anything to pique excitement.
The next week, like dominoes of worry toppling one-by-one, the offense came to life, scoring 37 points in a win over Tampa Bay. After not scoring a touchdown in the first 120 minutes of the season, the Rams scored five in 50 minutes of the Bucs game. Not only did they come back from a 10-point deficit (again -- they'd scored nine points total coming into the game) but they made a defensive stand to win when Jameis Winston had his offense running six plays from inside the red zone in the game's final seconds. It counted the same in the win column but was of an entirely different nature.
And then came Sunday, when the Rams scored a touchdown in the final three minutes to upset last year's NFC West champion Arizona Cardinals 17-13 and move to 3-1 for the first time in a decade. Yes, the Cards are struggling in 2016. They committed far too many penalties and had five giveaways. Carson Palmer getting hurt didn't help matters. But the 16-game NFL schedule is about taking advantage of opportunities, and plenty of teams don't -- including the Rams for about the last 13 years. These Rams have and, stunningly, they are tied with the Seahawks and have a two-game lead on the Cardinals a quarter of the way into the season. Plus they hold tiebreakers on both teams.
They're doing all this with Jared Goff, the No. 1 pick in April's draft and the team's would-be savior, sitting on the sideline. Meanwhile, five rookie quarterbacks, all drafted below (and in some cases, way below) Goff have played this year, going 9-4 in games they've started or in which they've gotten serious playing time.
That shouldn't be a knock on Goff. How can he be better than Carson Wentz when he's not on the field? Remember, Wentz didn't win a starting job in Philly. Like all four of the other rookies to get playing time this year, he only got on the field because of an injury to somebody else. Goff might be a victim of circumstance. The guy he's backing up hasn't gotten hurt.
It's absurd. Sitting as a rookie, even as a No. 1 pick, has been the rule for most of the common-draft era, not the exception. The difference with the others is that they weren't immediately dismissed as busts because of a bad preseason and the success of guys taken below him.
Goff's image isn't helped by the nonstop NFL news cycle, which declares successes or failures every week. There was a way to finesse the narrative and the Rams trampled all over it. It wasn't as if Fisher badmouthed Goff, but everything he said sounded like a dig. The coach qualified his statements."Jared's had a great camp. So has [then second-string quarterback] Sean [Mannion]." He bit when asked questions about Goff's status and implicitly confirmed these negative rumors. "It's unfair to compare him to anybody else."(Well, now that's exactly what we're doing!) And then did it some more."Regardless of what everybody else is saying out there, [Goff is] our quarterback; he's going to be our franchise player. It's just not right now." It was baffling. Jeff Fisher knows everything he says will dissected into minutiae. Yet there he was, burying his quarterback while tacitly defending him.
L.A. set up its preseason like a competition, one that Goff finished in a distant third with his unsure play and constant fumbles. Had Fisher set expectations lower, saying Goff was likely to sit early, then the entire idea of Goff as a disappointment never gets started. The Rams started this, not the media or the fans.
Maybe the Rams blew it trading up and taking Goff. Maybe Wentz was the pick. Maybe they should have waited and taken a Paxton Lynch or a Dak Prescott later. Or maybe they did it exactly right, making Goff a rookie backup -- the same as other No. overall 1 picks like Palmer, Michael Vick and Eli Manning -- and waiting for him to blossom into the talent everybody anticipated him becoming.
For the Rams, it's a wonderful problem. You have a young quarterback improving each week. You have a team left for dead in Week 1 that is now atop of what's been the NFL's most competitive division in the last five years. And you have a No. 1 pick waiting in the wings, his future unwritten despite attempts to the contrary.
http://www.foxsports.com/nfl/story/...oes-that-mean-for-no-1-pick-jared-goff-100216
The Los Angeles Rams are 3-1, and if you saw that coming after the team's disastrous 28-0 season-opening loss on Monday Night Football, then, regrettably, I have to declare you, sir or madam, a liar. It doesn't matter if you had a crystal ball. You'd have just thought it was scuffed. If doesn't matter if you're Marty McFly and had a copy of Gray's Sports Almanac. You'd assume it was a typo. Heck, I'm looking at the standings right now and still can't believe it. The Los Angeles Rams are 3-1, and they're doing it all without the No. 1 pick in this year's draft, quarterback Jared Goff, during a year in which rookie quarterbacks are off to prolific and historic starts.
It would have been unbelievable enough to predict the Rams' start at the beginning of the season, but after that loss to the 49ers, in which the team was unwatchable, there was legitimate (if ridiculous) belief that the Rams could be bad enough to flirt with 0-16. They had 185 total yards. Quarterback Case Keenum had 3.7 yards per pass attempt (the worst QBs in the NFL hover around 6.5 ypa). L.A. had more penalty yards (100) than rushing yards (65). It had seven drives of three-and-out, punted 10 times and didn't run a single play from inside the red zone.
The last time a team had been shut out in Week 1 was 2009. It was these same Rams (playing in St. Louis, of course), and they lost to a division rival by a familiar score of 28-0. That squad went 1-15. At that moment less than three weeks ago, there were exactly two things to be excited about if you were a new Rams fan: that Los Angeles had a football team again and that sometimes it would break out those sweet throwbacks.
And then, without warning, came a win in Week 2 over the perennial power Seattle Seahawks.
Yeah, but it was a weird game won by the bizarre score of 9-3 (just the 11th time a game had finished that way since the merger). Maybe the Seahawks weren't any good (they'd only defeated the lowly Dolphins 12-10 in Week 1), and it's not exactly as if three field goals and nine total points in two games is anything to pique excitement.
The next week, like dominoes of worry toppling one-by-one, the offense came to life, scoring 37 points in a win over Tampa Bay. After not scoring a touchdown in the first 120 minutes of the season, the Rams scored five in 50 minutes of the Bucs game. Not only did they come back from a 10-point deficit (again -- they'd scored nine points total coming into the game) but they made a defensive stand to win when Jameis Winston had his offense running six plays from inside the red zone in the game's final seconds. It counted the same in the win column but was of an entirely different nature.
And then came Sunday, when the Rams scored a touchdown in the final three minutes to upset last year's NFC West champion Arizona Cardinals 17-13 and move to 3-1 for the first time in a decade. Yes, the Cards are struggling in 2016. They committed far too many penalties and had five giveaways. Carson Palmer getting hurt didn't help matters. But the 16-game NFL schedule is about taking advantage of opportunities, and plenty of teams don't -- including the Rams for about the last 13 years. These Rams have and, stunningly, they are tied with the Seahawks and have a two-game lead on the Cardinals a quarter of the way into the season. Plus they hold tiebreakers on both teams.
They're doing all this with Jared Goff, the No. 1 pick in April's draft and the team's would-be savior, sitting on the sideline. Meanwhile, five rookie quarterbacks, all drafted below (and in some cases, way below) Goff have played this year, going 9-4 in games they've started or in which they've gotten serious playing time.
That shouldn't be a knock on Goff. How can he be better than Carson Wentz when he's not on the field? Remember, Wentz didn't win a starting job in Philly. Like all four of the other rookies to get playing time this year, he only got on the field because of an injury to somebody else. Goff might be a victim of circumstance. The guy he's backing up hasn't gotten hurt.
It's absurd. Sitting as a rookie, even as a No. 1 pick, has been the rule for most of the common-draft era, not the exception. The difference with the others is that they weren't immediately dismissed as busts because of a bad preseason and the success of guys taken below him.
Goff's image isn't helped by the nonstop NFL news cycle, which declares successes or failures every week. There was a way to finesse the narrative and the Rams trampled all over it. It wasn't as if Fisher badmouthed Goff, but everything he said sounded like a dig. The coach qualified his statements."Jared's had a great camp. So has [then second-string quarterback] Sean [Mannion]." He bit when asked questions about Goff's status and implicitly confirmed these negative rumors. "It's unfair to compare him to anybody else."(Well, now that's exactly what we're doing!) And then did it some more."Regardless of what everybody else is saying out there, [Goff is] our quarterback; he's going to be our franchise player. It's just not right now." It was baffling. Jeff Fisher knows everything he says will dissected into minutiae. Yet there he was, burying his quarterback while tacitly defending him.
L.A. set up its preseason like a competition, one that Goff finished in a distant third with his unsure play and constant fumbles. Had Fisher set expectations lower, saying Goff was likely to sit early, then the entire idea of Goff as a disappointment never gets started. The Rams started this, not the media or the fans.
Maybe the Rams blew it trading up and taking Goff. Maybe Wentz was the pick. Maybe they should have waited and taken a Paxton Lynch or a Dak Prescott later. Or maybe they did it exactly right, making Goff a rookie backup -- the same as other No. overall 1 picks like Palmer, Michael Vick and Eli Manning -- and waiting for him to blossom into the talent everybody anticipated him becoming.
For the Rams, it's a wonderful problem. You have a young quarterback improving each week. You have a team left for dead in Week 1 that is now atop of what's been the NFL's most competitive division in the last five years. And you have a No. 1 pick waiting in the wings, his future unwritten despite attempts to the contrary.
