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Rams QB Jared Goff has history on his side in 2020
Goff enters his fifth year as starting quarterback, a season when past Rams greats blossomed.
www.dailynews.com
When Jared Goff takes his next regular-season snap for the Rams, he’ll begin his fifth year as the team’s starting quarterback.
One reason this is notable is that the list of Rams who’ve held the position for five years is short and glamorous: Hall of Famers Bob Waterfield and Norm Van Brocklin, onetime MVP Roman Gabriel, and the franchise’s top two in career passing yardage.
Another reason is that the milestone seems to bring out the best in Rams pass-throwers.
Waterfield: In between leading the Cleveland Rams to the NFL title as a rookie in 1945 and combining with Van Brocklin to lead the Los Angeles Rams to the city’s first pro sports title in 1951, Waterfield actually had his most prolific season as a passer with a then-franchise-record 2,168 passing yards in 1949. It was his fifth year as starter.
Van Brocklin: Before he was traded to the Philadelphia Eagles in 1958, Van Brocklin helped to define the L.A. Rams’ first great era and set a franchise record for career passing yards that stood for 15 years. The biggest chunk of those yards came in 1954, when his 2,637 yards led the league. It was his fifth year as starter.
Gabriel: His biggest season yards-wise was 1967, his third year after finally winning the battle for the full-time starting job. But his greatest season overall was 1969, when the offensive hero of the Fearsome Foursome-era Rams led them to an 11-0 start and was named the NFL MVP. If you need math help: It was his fifth year as full-time starter.
Jim Everett: In his fifth year as starter, 1990, Everett tried hard, maybe too hard. But the Rams’ franchise leader in passing yardage couldn’t carry a team that was falling apart after a strong decade. Ironically, while Rams finished the season 5-11, Everett finished it in the only Pro Bowl of his career as replacement for injured Joe Montana.
Marc Bulger: The quarterback who followed Kurt Warner in St. Louis ended up second to Everett on the Rams’ all-time passing list. He had his biggest year in, you guessed it, his fifth season as starter in 2006. He earned one of his two trips to the Pro Bowl by throwing for 4,301 yards, in the process becoming the fastest NFL passer to reach 1,000 career completions.
To sum up: All five were Pro Bowlers or All-Pros in their fifth year as Rams starting quarterback.
(Some other big-name Rams quarterbacks didn’t hold the job for five straight years, including Super Bowl quarterbacks Warner and Vince Ferragamo.)
One difference between the Rams quarterback constants of the past and Goff: While they reached their fifth year in the starting role at the peak athletic ages of 27, 28 and 29, Goff is getting there at age 26 after leaving Cal following his junior year and winning the job midway through his rookie season in 2016. Goff might still have more room to mature than his predecessors did.
It wasn’t clear that new offensive coordinator Kevin O’Connell knew the potential significance of having a starting quarterback in his fifth year when he told reporters in May that Goff should show improvements in technique, leadership and command of X’s and O’s in “his fifth year of offensive ownership.”
But Rams fans can hope that their quarterback will benefit from the combination of physical youth and mental seasoning that a player in his fifth year at the helm of an offense should enjoy.
It has happened before.
