Forget a Super Bowl slump. The LA Rams have a Jared Goff problem
The defending NFC champions have wedded themselves to a kind-of-sort-of OK quarterback they’re paying like a superstar and the consequences could be far-reaching
www.theguardian.com
The defending NFC champions have wedded themselves to a kind-of-sort-of OK quarterback they’re paying like a superstar and the consequences could be far-reaching
The Rams have a Jared Goff problem. At 5-4, in the toughest division in football, the upstart darlings from a year ago are in danger of missing the playoffs.
Sunday’s loss to the Steelers was the most disappointing yet, for Goff and the team. As in
last year’s ugly Super Bowl loss, Goff turned into a puddle of panic. He was in a terrible state. His eyes flicked around the field. If he didn’t feel
real pressure from an immediate free-rusher, he imagined it. Rarely has fear been so visible in a quarterback’s face. Defenders know; his teammates too.
Goff finished the game with his worst statistical outing of the season: 22-of-41 passing for 243 yards, with a season-low 53.7 completion percentage, no touchdowns, two interceptions, four sacks, and a passer rating barely cracking the 50s.
Lookup any advanced metric and you’ll find Goff in the bottom third of the league:
DVOA, 24th;
QBR, 28th. Pro Football Focus ranks him as the worst quarterback – by passer rating – under pressure this season.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/nov/12/colin-kaepernick-workout-nfl-atlanta
Yes. This is really the guy the Rams signed to a four-year, $134m contract this offseason, with $120m in guarantees, the highest guaranteed total in the league history. Yikes.
What Goff’s leverage was, nobody knows. Last year’s Rams offense was special. They brought intricacy for the nerds and loud highlights for when you just wanted to see supernova athletes do cool stuff. Sean McVay brought organized disorder. They clobbered people on the ground and through the air. They ran behind the best run-blocking line in the league with the league’s top back. Nobody could keep up with an offense that paired such a run game with a sophisticated play-action plan and creative dropback passing system. Everything fit so artfully.
This year’s updated model is more stilted. Bill Belichick – along with the Lions and Bears – provided a blueprint on how to slow down the Rams creative ground game and confuse Goff. Ignore all the motions and shifts and fun and games. Hit your marks, stay disciplined, do your job, and good things will happen – like against any great offense.
What looked an unstoppable scheme 11 games ago is now stuck in the mud: Everybody is following the Belichick-Fangio-Patrica recipe in some form or fashion; the Rams offensive line has disintegrated; Todd Gurley isn’t the same running back anymore. LA are 21st in offensive efficiency through 10-weeks. They remain balanced – 18th in pass efficiency and 17th in rush efficiency – it’s just that they’re now balanced and
bad.
There are no good answers, and that is because the simplest answer – dumping Goff – is a bad one, too. The Rams have 41 players under contract and $26m in projected cap space in 2020. They don’t have a first-round pick in the upcoming draft or in 2021 either. Re-tooling the offensive line under such restraints is damn near impossible.
And It’s not like the team has much flexibility to open up any space. In the
NFL, the salary cap is usually a mirage. If teams need to find money to squeeze another player in or get some form of cap relief, they can. They juggle the contracts of their stars, extend players early to give relief now, crisscross contracts (you get an inflated number this year, then a cheap one next year; you get the opposite), and exert leverage to drop the cap numbers of veteran players.
Look, we’ll probably cut you anyway, so sign this new deal now with a little more upfront but that gives us more chances to add players this offseason.
The Rams don’t have any tricks up their sleeves. There’s no big money maker they can axe to free the amount of space needed to overhaul this offense. The dead cap numbers for 2020 of some potential money-freeing targets should come with some kind of safety warning: