Rams made blueprint to part with failing QBs - (interesting article)

[Elmgrovegnome]

Rams made the blueprint for parting with failed QB picks

This is not the stat that Jared Goff or the Lions wanted to see on Sunday: The former Rams number one overall pick has never won an NFL game without Sean McVay or Ben Johnson calling plays for him. He’s 0-19-1 in those situations. When a team drafts a quarterback with the number one overall […]

sports.yahoo.com

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Rams made the blueprint for parting with failed QB picks​

Kenneth Arthur
Wed, Sep 10, 2025 at 9:09 AM EDT
This is not the stat that Jared Goff or the Lions wanted to see on Sunday: The former Rams number one overall pick has never won an NFL game without Sean McVay or Ben Johnson calling plays for him. He’s 0-19-1 in those situations.

Jared Goff hasn't won an NFL game without Sean McVay or Ben Johnson calling plays pic.twitter.com/IUmvOQPOyh

— Underdog (@Underdog) September 9, 2025

When a team drafts a quarterback with the number one overall pick and then fires the head coach after one season or less together — a common outcome for those bad teams — they will do anything in their power to avoid admitting that the pick is a bust. That often means hiring an offensive-minded play caller as the new head coach, which is exactly what the Rams did when they fired Jeff Fisher partway through Goff’s rookie season and then hired McVay a couple of months later.


Then in 2021, the Rams admitted defeat, it just took a few years.

They traded Goff to the Lions, and then some time later Detroit made one of their best coaching changes in team history by promoting Ben Johnson to full-time offensive coordinator. Over three seasons together, Johnson and Goff thrived and achieved greater statistical highs than even Goff’s best days with McVay…albeit not with a Super Bowl appearance like what he did with L.A. in 2018.

Now cut to the first week of 2025, Johnson is the head coach of the Chicago Bears, and you have to wonder if he’s in the same situation with Caleb Williams that McVay once found himself in with Goff:


Yeah, maybe you can find a way to make this work. But if these situations are anything like what the L.A. Rams found themselves in with Goff after a few years under McVay, the end result could be admitting that the pick is simply a bad one.

The Rams created a blueprint for how to survive a questionable draft pick at quarterback:​

• Hire the best play caller in the NFL who isn’t already a head coach
• Try that for a while
• If that doesn’t work, keep the play caller and trade the quarterback for the best upgrade/return you can find

The Rams acquired Matthew Stafford — an undeniable veteran talent when he was traded — and immediately won a Super Bowl. L.A. managed to make this move even though Goff’s 2019 contract extension had yet to even kick in!

Ben Johnson is the head coach and offensive coordinator that the Bears want for years to come, probably even more than they want to see Caleb Williams become the franchise quarterback that he was billed to be a couple of years ago when he won the Heisman at USC. How many teams could try to copy the Rams by choosing play caller over an overhyped quarterback?

Bears: Ben Johnson, Caleb Williams​

It’s obviously still very early in Caleb’s career and he could soon look like one of the top young quarterbacks in the NFL. But what if he doesn’t?


There seems to be a lot wrong with Caleb’s game and maybe the reason he has thrown so few interceptions is that he’s having such a hard time throwing catchable passes — to anyone. It’s not as though there weren’t some people arguing that Caleb Williams had become one of the most overrated prospects of this generation even before the draft happened:


Call a spade a spade: There is at least one quarterback from the 2024 draft class who is miles ahead of him (Jayden Daniels), two more who have played better than him so far (Drake Maye, Bo Nix), one who just out-performed him on Monday night (J.J. McCarthy), and a fifth who has also played better on a smaller sample size (Michael Penix).


There are an incredible six NFL starters from the 2024 draft class and the only one who Caleb Williams appears to be better than is Spencer Rattler. And that debate is a lot closer than it should be.

It’s too early to say that the Bears should or will trade Williams at some point, but that IS the conversation that fans will be having at the end of the season if he doesn’t start playing ten times better than he has so far. With how he performed in Week 1, there is a chance that Chicago will once again be picking high in the 2026 draft and with some chance at taking yet another quarterback, someone who Ben Johnson might see as a more Goff-like processor (if not Tyson Bagent), that the Bears will be listening to offers for Williams.

If you think that’s absurd, you are forgetting that Zach Wilson was traded after 3 years with the Jets; Trey Lance was traded after 2 years with the 49ers; Justin Fields was traded after 3 years with the Bears; Mac Jones was traded after 3 years with the Patriots; and Kenny Pickett was traded after 2 years with the Steelers.

In the first round of the draft from 2021-2022, quarterbacks were less likely to make their fourth season with a team than they were assured to make it.

This is just a precursor to the certainly doomed fate of first round pick Anthony Richardson with the Colts in 2023, borderline first round pick Will Levis of the Titans, and possibly first overall pick Bryce Young, who was arguably the worst starter in the NFL last week.

Richardson could be traded during his third season and Levis was only not traded because he’s on IR.

The 49ers gave up on Lance only a few months after the third of three first round picks they traded for him was even used!


So could Caleb Williams actually be traded in 2026 if he’s bad in 2025? That’s not a hot take. That’s what teams are normally doing now if a quarterback is still bad after two seasons in the league, no matter how high he was drafted.

Panthers: Bryce Young, Dave Canales​

The Panthers love Canales because of what he did for Baker Mayfield on the Bucs in 2023. They wanted him to do the same for Young as what he did for Mayfield, as well as spending his entire career in Seattle when Russell Wilson was the quarterback. The bad news?


It just isn’t working yet.


Yes, Bryce Young’s supporting cast was pitiful in Week 1. But aside from a few statistically decent games at the end of last season, he’s been horrifically bad for an NFL starter. In Week 1, Young averaged only 4.4 yards per attempt and threw 2 interceptions with 51% completions and he was going against the Jacksonville Jaguars.

He also lost a fumble (his fifth fumble in his last 5 games) and had his worst passer rating game in a year.

If it continues like this, the Panthers will once again turn to Andy Dalton and they will put Bryce Young on the trade block. That’s what will happen because Carolina would probably rather trust Canales than the risky quarterback pick in 2023 who has yet to punch above his height through two seasons and change.

Jaguars: Trevor Lawrence, Liam Coen​

Lawrence is a mediocre quarterback with a galactic-sized reputation for being something far better than he actually is. The former 5-star recruit and generational talent who was supposed to be the next Peyton Manning or Andrew Luck is far more like Eli Manning and Oliver Luck.

Yet for some reason the Jaguars still paid Lawrence a second contract, a mistake that the team is trying to correct by hiring Coen for the same reason that Carolina hired Canales: He did great work with Mayfield.

Hey everyone, maybe Baker Mayfield is just a good quarterback!


The Jaguars have now gone all-out to try and over-correct their Trevor Lawrence contract problem by hiring Coen as the new HC/OC (with former Vikings assistant Grant Udinski) and trading next year’s first round pick to move up for Travis Hunter as a complement to Brian Thomas Jr.. Lucky for them, running back Travis Etienne was the player balling out in Week 1 and the Jaguars are 1-0.


But if Lawrence is not significantly better than he’s been the past two seasons (completing 60% of his passes for 5.7 Y/A against the Panthers in Week 1 was not the start that Jacksonville expected with all these resources put into the passing game), general manager James Gladstone (from the Rams org.) should and will consider trade offers in 2026. Especially since Jacksonville now doesn’t have a 2026 first round pick.

Other weird QB/HC situations​

• If things don’t get better, the Dolphins will probably fire Mike McDaniel AND part with Tua Tagovailoa; neither of them seem to be the answer
• Anthony Richardson is a good bet to be on a new team in 2026, same as Levis; he’s probably just not even a serviceable quarterback in almost any regard
• Kyler Murray would likely be “fired” by the Cardinals before Jonathan Gannon, giving Arizona’s regime a chance to pick their own QB
• The Cowboys would trade Dak Prescott if they could, but they almost certainly can’t do that before 2027

The Rams, as they often have under Les Snead and Sean McVay, have set the precedent for how to win football games consistently by knowing when it’s time to give up on a quarterback and not being afraid to eat the financial bullet to get it done. L.A. even had to sacrifice first round picks to make it happen.

Other teams have clearly followed suit and copied the Rams and will continue to do so in the coming months. It’s only been one week of this season, so far too early to say how many of these quarterbacks will be on the move in the next year, but you can bet teams are far less patient with signal callers than they used to be because we now how small those windows are to attack for a Super Bowl.


You’re never going to win those battles with quarterbacks who have played as poorly as Caleb Williams, Bryce Young, and Trevor Lawrence. First pick doesn’t mean last out.

 

[snackdaddy]

How many of those quarterbacks would thrive with a head coach like Sean McVay? And a GM like Snead to build around them? Of all the QB's listed I'd say Lawrence has the best shot. He's young. Will be 26 next month. Does have talent. With the right coaching and supporting cast I could see him doing good things. But that hair. Put some damn wave in it and grow beard or something.

 

[Merlin]

Detroit did a great job of rebuilding Goff's confidence, and putting the right type of team around him to maximize his efficiency. So cred to Brad and the staff on all that. But in the end a coach has to decide if he's got the right pieces, and QB is no different than any other position in that regard. Should not be any different that is. McVay made a call and fortunately he won a title, and it turns out he was right.

But that doesn't mean there isn't room for Goff to prove his doubters wrong. What is great about sports is the players are the ones who determine all that. We can sit here and talk all the mad shite we want, and we do, but these things come down to the men who actually put their hand in the dirt. So we'll see what kind of competitor Goff is in that regard.

Every year that passes as a fan, I have realized more and more how important competitive spirit is in this game. Martz famously said your greatest competitor on the field must be your QB. How right he was. And it's hard to evaluate that. So many kids in college can win games with a top team around them, or just enter the draft with insane talent levels, and I'm sure that makes it tough on teams who know they need to get that QB spot right.

It is a crap shoot in the end to project these kids. You can evaluate Goff in that year he came out, he had legit first round talent and that accuracy and touch you want in raw skill. But how do you know whether he's going to do the work, or get distracted by money or girls or whatever else life brings. So it all comes down to how much do they want it. A top talent who wants it and will work his ass off for it is the recipe. And the Rams have that right now, so I am at this point just trying to enjoy every moment of this Stafford era.

 

[Jacobarch]

How many of those quarterbacks would thrive with a head coach like Sean McVay? And a GM like Snead to build around them? Of all the QB's listed I'd say Lawrence has the best shot. He's young. Will be 26 next month. Does have talent. With the right coaching and supporting cast I could see him doing good things. But that hair. Put some damn wave in it and grow beard or something.

Problem with Lawrence is he has issues reading defenses. So did Goff, so that similarity alone could be the nail on his career coffin.