Jared Goff's first offseason

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http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2017/04/13/jared-goff-los-angeles-rams-sean-mcvay-nfl-minicamp

Sophomore Spurt or Slump?
The first offseason is crucial for quarterbacks coming off their rookie years. Here’s a look at where Jared Goff, Carson Wentz and Paxton Lynch stand.
by Albert Breer

mmqb-jared-goff-saints.jpg

Photo: Sean Gardner/Getty Images

The rules are the rules, so first-year Rams coach Sean McVay has spent a lot more time since January looking at his new quarterback on a television monitor than he has looking him in the eye.

With the team’s offseason program starting this week, McVay readily concedes he and Jared Goff have a long way to go in making the team’s massive investment in the QB look smart.

But go ahead and ask McVay what’s made him most excited. He won’t skip a beat.

“New Orleans. New Orleans. Watch the New Orleans game,” he says, laughing. “He made a lot good throws, where he moved, he slid, he had a good feel for the pocket. When things condensed around him, he threw for a couple touchdowns. He ends up making a zero audible vs. a zero pressure, where he gets to max protection and hits Tavon Austin on a corner route in a 3-by-1 formation.

“If you buzz through that game, there’s a handful of plays that get you encouraged, where he’s moving, he’s making athletic throws, and he’s showing he can take a hit and get the ball out. He made a lot of throws in that game you get excited about. And he’s doing things mentally, where you can see he’s making protection audibles and getting the ball where it should be vs. those pressure looks.”

Over the next two weeks, we will obsess over where Mitchell Trubisky and Deshaun Watson and the rest of the draft quarterbacks will land. Most people won’t spend a second thinking about the guys we were obsessing over a year ago.

But for those quarterbacks—Goff and fellow 2016 first-rounders Carson Wentz and Paxton Lynch—these weeks are critical, maybe moreso than they are for even Trubisky and Watson.

But we’ll start with the 2016 first-round quarterbacks, and what many coaches believe is the most critical offseason of any player’s career—the one between rookie year and Year 2, when growth should be at its most rapid. It started for Lynch in Denver on Monday, and Wentz and the Eagles get going next Monday.

Likewise, Goff and McVay are now three days in. And McVay does have those impressions from the tape. As he explained, “The two characteristics that we really value a lot from that position—are you a natural thrower of the football, and are you tough enough not to flinch in the face of the rush? He has both those things.”

Conversely, McVay won’t hesitate to admit he doesn’t know yet what ultimately he’ll need to know most about Goff. And to get there, he links the process ahead to a belief that’s deeply embedded in McVay’s football heritage.

“This goes back to what my grandpa (ex-Niners architect John McVay) instilled in me, from Bill (Walsh),” McVay said. “The quarterback position is the most difficult position. So everything that we do is geared towards making the most difficult position as easy as possible. And everything that you do is with the quarterback in mind first.

“And the thing that was great about having two guys like Kirk (Cousins) and Colt (McCoy in Washington), who took such great ownership of what we were trying to get done, they could explain why they liked a play. And if they didn’t like a certain play, whether it was Kirk or if Colt was playing, then we weren’t gonna call it. I thought it showed the value of having that relationship and rapport.”

And there you have the biggest goal set for Goff this spring.

To earn veto power that Cousins and McCoy attained over the next 11 weeks, as the coach sees it, two things have to be achieved. Goff needs to understand the offense well enough to articulate the “why.” And Goff, McVay, coordinator Matt LaFleur and QBs coach Greg Olson need to build the trust to have that kind of open discourse.

Is it different to try and give a 22-year-old that kind of latitude? A little. But Cousins’ results, and how a colorful offensive group in Washington responded to McVay’s style is proof positive that it’s been effective.

As for where they are now, the limited face time coach and quarterback have had has been largely uneventful. Goff was in two-hour meetings with the staff Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. They covered style of play, formations, motions and personnel groupings on Day 1, baseline drop-back concepts on Day 2, and protections Wednesday. It wasn’t intimate—all the skill players were there.

But McVay was able to get a little more in January when he spoke with Goff during his interview process.

“The thing I really liked in how he came off, even before he had any idea we’d be working together, clearly things didn’t go as well as we would’ve liked last year, but he made no excuses,” McVay said. “He took full accountability and I sensed a guy who was challenged to respond in the right kind of ways, as opposed to making excuses for not playing as well as we would’ve liked last year.”

Of course, Goff hasn’t been sitting on his hands the past three months. One big focus in his work away from the facility has been on finding consistency in the kind of stroke he had in that New Orleans game. And he’ll continue to work on his drops from center and becoming a better distributor and more aggressive downfield.

McVay and Goff will get to that when they hit the field in a few weeks. For now, the good news is McVay sees evidence that, while there’s a long way to go, the vault of draft capital the Rams yielded for the guy on that Saints tape eventually will prove to be well worth it.

“You see the natural thrower, you see the toughness, those are the things you get excited about,” McVay said. “And then, what you also appreciate is, if this guy stayed in college, he’d be a senior right now without even having redshirted. …

So he has a lot of maturing and developing to come. When you see those kinds of skills, it gets you excited about the opportunity to work with him and try to help him develop and reach that highest potential. And I know Greg and Matt feel the same way.”

So that’s Goff. His draft classmates? Glad you asked …

mmqb-lynch-wentz.jpg

Photo: Getty Images (2)

• Paxton’s progress: Broncos coach Vance Joseph said this week that he’d like the competition between Trevor Siemian and Lynch to go deep into the summer. That’s the way it’ll go if both are assimilating to the new staff and playing well. But I believe the presence of new/old offensive coordinator Mike McCoy gives Lynch a leg up, and for a couple reasons.

First, McCoy is master at retrofitting his scheme to match its signal-caller. In fact, it’s the mark of who he is as a coach. He made it work for Tim Tebow one year, Peyton Manning the next. So he should be able to mitigate that Lynch is raw, and that means talent will matter more. Second, as he did for both Rivers and Peyton Manning, McCoy plans to add elements of Gary Kubiak’s offense to ease the transition.

Joseph, for his part, has seen every inch of game and practice tape from Lynch’s rookie year, and I’m told he reached out to Kubiak to get a more complete picture on his new quarterbacks. Two things on Lynch’s game tape that impressed the staff: 1) How he seamlessly came into the Tampa game and competed; 2) How he took drops from center. Having been a shotgun QB in college, that showed he’s coachable.

That’s not to say he’s perfect. Lynch was less effective in his two starts than when he came into that Tampa game and flashed on the fly, a sign that he had more trouble with defenses game-planning for him. But there’s certainly plenty to work with here.

• What about Wentz? Goff played 393 snaps and threw 205 balls as a rookie. Lynch played 176 snaps and threw 83 passes. By comparison, Wentz played 1,127 snaps (second most among all NFL QBs in 2016) and threw 607 balls. The Eagles rookie started hot, had to deal with defensive coaches getting tape and building a book on him, leveled off, and then continued to grow.

Naturally, we know more about Wentz. For obvious reasons, there’s more optimism on Wentz nationally than the other two. But that doesn’t mean there’s not plenty of work to be done. The Eagles sent him off in January with two directives, as I understand them. One, he needed to rest a worn out throwing elbow. Two, he was to drill his lower body mechanics, in an effort to play and throw with more balance.

The Eagles’ staff will get its first look at Wentz on Monday, when vets return for Year 2 of the Doug Pederson era, and there’s something else Pederson hopes he gets. “I want to see him embracing being a leader on this football team,” Pederson told me, a few weeks back. “Now that he’s got a year under his belt, he can be the guy, a guy who can really motivate other players, challenge other players.”

Once we get to OTAs, the hope is that the offseason work on his mechanics and the rest will help Wentz’s downfield accuracy, one area where defenses made it hard on him last year. But there’s still plenty to be excited about here.

* * *

Each of these guys had help in the offseason, too. Wentz and Goff worked with renowned QB gurus Tom House and Adam Dedeaux; Lynch went back home to Florida to work with the coach who readied him for the draft, Charlie Taaffe. So each guy seems to be doing the right things.

But numbers tell us all of them won’t make it. In the five-year span between 2009 and ’13, 14 quarterbacks were drafted in the first round. Five got second contracts, and one of those was Mark Sanchez. Only Andrew Luck, Ryan Tannehill, Cam Newton and Matthew Stafford remain with their drafting teams. Bottom line: The odds aren’t in favor of all three of these guys becoming true franchise quarterbacks.

It will be fun to watch and see which of the three do.
 

yrba1

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See a lot of promise too, but I remain cautiously optimistic since a lot of same praise was said about Sam Bradford. To be fair though, Fisher is the worst coach for developing players on offense.
 

ArkyRamsFan

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I thought Goff had a tremendous first half in the New Orleans game, but his second half left a lot to be desired.
Does anyone on the board have any ideas or input on what happened to Goff and why he was putrid in the second half of the Saints game?

~ArkyRamsFan~
 

badnews

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Does anyone on the board have any ideas or input on what happened to Goff and why he was putrid in the second half of the Saints game?

The Rams offense was super predictable, was coached terribly, they couldn't hide if the play was run or pass and they could not make in game adjustments.
By half-time the Saints defense had us figured out. After that? The book on the Rams was written, and no one on our staff did anything to change it for the rest of the year.
 

LACHAMP46

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Wonder who started @ Left Tackle in that New Orleans game?
LOLOLOL

http://www.footballdb.com/stats/teamstat.html?group=D&cat=T

guess who's at the bottom, all the way down there at....giving up 273.8 yards a game passing....give you 3 guesses too....
http://www.footballdb.com/teams/nfl/new-orleans-saints/stats

Top two in sacks were ole Nick Fairley with 6.5 and they were led by Cameron Jordan and his otherworldly 7.5 Monsters!

Sure you remember when the Saints had 3 of the best LB's in the game....think Pat Swilling was there....So, whoever played LT that game, didn't face Deacon Jones.
 

jrry32

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“This goes back to what my grandpa (ex-Niners architect John McVay) instilled in me, from Bill (Walsh),” McVay said. “The quarterback position is the most difficult position. So everything that we do is geared towards making the most difficult position as easy as possible. And everything that you do is with the quarterback in mind first.

“And the thing that was great about having two guys like Kirk (Cousins) and Colt (McCoy in Washington), who took such great ownership of what we were trying to get done, they could explain why they liked a play. And if they didn’t like a certain play, whether it was Kirk or if Colt was playing, then we weren’t gonna call it. I thought it showed the value of having that relationship and rapport.”

Would have been nice if somebody told Fisher that.
 

OldSchool

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Wonder who started @ Left Tackle in that New Orleans game?
Some scrub who can't stay healthy. Only played 22 snaps against one of the worst defenses the NFL has seen in the last 2 decades. Wonder if that's something to brag about :)
 

BonifayRam

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Some scrub who can't stay healthy. Only played 22 snaps against one of the worst defenses the NFL has seen in the last 2 decades. Wonder if that's something to brag about :)

Oh Yes that would mean Andrew Donnal had to relieve Mr Glass pretty early would it not? Who had never played OLT in the NFL before. Just a small nugget to remind us that Donnal did hold up well that day. Others did not. Then there we some who were not there period.
 

bubbaramfan

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Oh great, Albert Breer, formerly of the Boston Globe and reporter for the Patriots.:puke: Now writing for MMQB and Bro-mancing Peter King. I'm confident he has a handle on what the Rams are doing. :baghead: Dude is absolutely clueless on the Rams and he could care less. Only did the article because he was told to.:blah::blah::blah:
 

majrleaged

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The Rams offense was super predictable, was coached terribly, they couldn't hide if the play was run or pass and they could not make in game adjustments.
By half-time the Saints defense had us figured out. After that? The book on the Rams was written, and no one on our staff did anything to change it for the rest of the year.
Pretty much they started to blitz and that worked and kept working thru the end of the season.
 

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How the Rams Brought the No. 1 Pick to L.A.
Myles Simmons/Rams Insider

600

Los Angeles Times

Many around the league have considered the Rams a team “close” to contention for a number of years. Though its carried a stout defense and back-to-back AP Rookie of the Year honorees, the club has still fallen short of its stated goal to make the postseason.

But with a bold move worthy of the team’s hometown, the Rams have acquired the No. 1 overall pick in the 2016 NFL Draft. And the team’s brass believes this first selection on April 28 could be a primary factor in L.A. contending for the NFC West title.

“We’re done being close,” head coach Jeff Fisher told therams.com on Thursday. “We want to get over the top and be significant.”

The blockbuster deal that netted Los Angeles the No. 1, No. 113, and No. 177 overall selections had its first seeds planted just under two months ago.

“We evaluate our roster like everybody else does,” Fisher said at Thursday’s press conference. “Mid-February, we’re at the Combine — we had a plan.”

For the event at Lucas Oil Stadium, teams are assigned suites where their personnel may gather to watch on-field drills. This year, the Rams’ and Titans’ suites happened to be right next to one another.

General manager Les Snead said he and new Titans GM Jon Robinson have essentially grown up together in the business, so there was already a comfort level between them. That may have been one factor in why Snead approached Robinson in Indianapolis about the possibility of dealing the No. 1 overall pick.

“I knew this: They had a quarterback they drafted last year. We’ve worn those shoes before,” Snead said Thursday. “I knew they might be thinking, ‘Hey, let’s move back acquire some more picks,’ because they had their QB. And I thought they might be open to it. So it started then.”

Snead added the close proximity of the two suites allowed he and Robinson to chat more than they may have otherwise.

“It was easy for Jon and I to sneak out the back of the suite there, and act like we were going to the restroom, and then chat about the pick,” he said.

And that friendship between Snead and Robinson may have aided the trade in getting off the ground.

“Anytime you’re dealing with somebody that you know or at least you respect, you probably work well. You look forward to picking up the phone and calling,” Snead said. “Now, in this business, there are only 31 other teams you can work with.

So even the 10 [GMs] that you may not know as well and you may not want to pick up the phone and call just to call, you still have to pick up the phone and do business. But you may make a few more phone calls if you know the guy.”

For this deal, Snead said he zeroed in on the Titans — and only the Titans. There may have been a few phone calls to other teams with high first-round picks, but they never amounted to anything substantial.

“I did talk to people in the top five, but they’re good buddies of mine, so … on the long commute here [to Oxnard], I’ve got to have something to do,” Snead said. “But I think we focused in on [No.] 1, because you didn’t know what was going to happen at [No.] 2. And, hey, if you want something, go get it.”

But it’s not quite that simple. Snead described this trade process as analogous to writing a term paper. There are multiple layers to it, from not only finding the right trade partner, but also to making sure there’s a player worth the value you’re giving up.

“It’s probably not like going to buy groceries,” Snead said. “You don’t just walk in the store, pick them out, and go buy them. It’s more of a longer process where you’re trying to figure out values and all that. And then you go get it done.”

“We found the perfect trade partner,” Fisher said. “We felt like to have an impact and to go where we need to go, why not go up and get the best player available?”

While discussions between the two teams have been ongoing since the Combine, they reached a fever pitch this week.

“Probably sometime over the weekend, Jon and I came up with a timeline, of, ‘OK, it’s time to quit flirting and start dancing a little bit.’” Snead said. The Rams’ GM noted both teams would likely have to make adjustments to their draft preparations over the next two weeks with such a dramatic shift in first-round picks.

“We would probably check in once a day, once every other day,” Snead continued. “And I checked in with Jon yesterday, and he said, ‘Hey, we want to do it today.’ So I wasn’t necessarily expecting it, but knew it was coming toward the end of the week.”

According to Fisher, both Rams’ and Titans’ ownership gave their approval Wednesday afternoon and the trade between the teams was complete by about 5 p.m. CT.

“Yesterday as we were getting close to dotting the ‘i’s and crossing the ’t’s, we got in touch with Stan [Kroenke] and we’re very, very excited about this opportunity,” Fisher said, “not only for the potential future of our football team, but in addition to the circumstances and the timing.”

But, there was another particularly significant sporting event going on about 60 miles away from Oxnard in downtown Los Angeles Wednesday night, prompting the Rams to hit the pause button on announcing the blockbuster trade.

“Jeff and I were probably deep into football and drafts, and all of a sudden [we realized], ‘Oh yeah, it is Kobe’s last night,’” Snead said.

That’s right — Fisher said the organization wanted to do everything it could to honor Kobe Bryant’s last game in the NBA, as he finished his storied 20-year career with the Lakers.

“Now keep in mind, they were really excited,” Fisher said, adding the Titans initially wanted to announce the trade Wednesday night. “So that’s when we had the conversation where we said, ‘Hey look, we’ll keep this quiet, you guys keep this quiet. Let’s honor Kobe, and the Lakers, and the L.A. fans tonight. And we’ll do something in the morning. That’s how it went down.”

At 6 a.m. pacific — 8 a.m. central — Thursday morning, the Titans sent out a release announcing they had acquired six draft picks in exchange for No. 1, No. 113, and No. 177 overall selections this year.

And in just two weeks, we’ll find out who the Rams will take at the top of the draft to usher in a new era of professional football in Los Angeles.
 

OldSchool

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It's funny listening to sports talk radio. You hear comments all the time about how Goff and Wentz aren't better prospects than the QB's in this class. Yet you go on most websites and the grades that they had last year on those two are higher grades than all of the QB's in this years draft. So glad we traded up last year. The only guy in this class I'd want is Watson.
 

Merlin

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Would have been nice if somebody told Fisher that.

No doubt. The big difference though, and simple as it is, is that McVay would never have convinced himself that a backup QB was the answer when he was sitting on a 1 overall pick they traded up for.

Goff would have had the snaps and preparation from day one to include the entire offense adjusted around what he did well. Still might not have had a great rookie season, of course, but point is he would have been the focus vice being treated like a redheaded stepchild. And by the end of the season he probably would have shown some serious gains.
 

GabesHorn

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I feel like Jared Goff is just now gonna be given his best REAL chance to succeed and is finally surrounded by the proper minds and coaches that develop VERY YOUNG true talent like Goff is. Hate that Jared had to waste as much time and try to make as much as he can from last year into a positive he can grow from as he has to forget most of what he was shown by some of the leagues worst offensive minds that their was.

I actually feel we can use our missing #1 pick all over again on Jared Goff . He was the right pick with the wrong coaching staff. So young and probably needing 3 years to finally be able to be the true dynamic leader and if he had started with McVay and this staff we have now I would even say the time would be shortened before folks would be sayin the Rams really struck gold with this guy if he can keep staying healthy and keep growing in size. Not Tebow size but he can make himself safer and possibly even increase his velocity that is already fit for the pro game.

It's going to be exciting to finally have super high Expectations all over again. Without the hazing this time not that I'm not from that NFL Era. I was a believer in Jarod over Wentz from all I studied before we picked so I felt like a winner from that standpoint in what I saw in pocket footwork and arm accuracy into NFL windows. Knowing he was not getting what he truly needed from Weinke up to a short limit and a real NFL offense and not what Boras was serving up behind that OL. I think Kurt Warner is going into the Hall Of Fame for one not notated ability and needed gift and that gift I think Jared Goff shares is TOUGHNESS from hard hits as Martz got many QB's hurt in his not enough protection schemes.

Jared is surprisingly durable with the hits he took including the hit he took in the Seattle game that should have been much worse. Getting up from standing in the pocket to make THE throw not afraid of the hit that IS coming and that is what impressed McVay very much also. It can go either way as to IF we have a Franchise QB or we got a backup. I'm gonna be positive and not focus on all we did'nt see last year. We get a fresh start with 20 new coaches plus help in the offseason from two other technique coaches that are very worthy. Jared would have just finished his Senior year. Maybe we can get some blocking and some more accurate routes with hands and some modern passing plays that get players open in today's passing NFL. We will attempt to go downfield. We need more talent from my standpoint for Goff to throw to. We need a number 1 wide reciever.

I'm not confident Tavon Austin can aquire a miracle technique in his last season as a Ram. We need his money to sign AD longterm. Was so excited when we signed those two Moutaineers. We can forget last season and pray an all new approach and concerted TRUE effort can be brought into RAISING JARED GOFF. This may be my last GREAT effort to see to its Fruition for my Beloved RAMS. I feel very good about it and if this kid has the Brains for it, It is the last answer he needs to answer for me in this equasion. I have no idea about that one answer. I'm very excited about how coach McVay will handle that part with two other Great proven minds to help Jared with. So in my mind we get our #1 pick all over again. Glad we traded up last year and not waited on this years crop of QB's. I'm excited . I'm not forgetting the bad I saw last year but we have found out a few things we did'nt know behind the scenes with Jared that was also a detriment to his proper growth. Maturity moving forward will get better with one more season and some success under our belt. GO RAMS!!!!!:yess:
 
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bubbaramfan

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Your first paragraph could also apply to the OL Gabe. good post.

Goff is going to profit from the better play at LT and C.