I haven't heard the step up in year 3 narrative. But, on a related note, like someone else said, part of Goff's pre-draft was that he got better every year at Cal.
FWIW, Football Outsiders did some analysis of Goff, after the Atlanta game and linking the write up from the second Seattle game.
Part 1:
https://www.footballoutsiders.com/any-given-sunday/2018/any-given-sunday-falcons-over-rams
Goff took a major step forward in 2017, one for which it is almost impossible to separate credit and blame between Jeff Fisher's disaster of an offense and Sean McVay's
wunderkind designs. This is no damning indictment of Goff's future -- we're 17 games into him being good and he's still learning the quarterback position. As I said, he hit some huge throws in this game. From a scouting perspective, this is the sort of stuff that made him a No. 1 pick despite his time in a spread-focused Cal offense.
But as it currently stands, he's still slightly robotic. He's still reliant on the scheme. He's making throws, but not creating throws. That, and some poor fumble luck, are why the Rams didn't find the defending NFC champions quite as easy as the teams they spanked during the regular season. As
we noted a few weeks ago, the Rams had a relatively inconsistent pass offense this year. If McVay could scheme them into big plays, it happened. When it didn't, they were often more solid than good. And, in a playoff bracket this stacked, solid can get you beat.
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Part 2 (the link from "As we noted a few weeks ago" above)
https://www.footballoutsiders.com/any-given-sunday/2017/any-given-sunday-rams-over-seahawks
But the reason the Rams have become a potential No. 1 seed and not just a fringe playoff contender isn't the defense and special teams. We projected the Rams with the 29th-ranked offense, and instead they are sixth. You may have heard about Sean McVay's offensive turnaround, as we are hardly the only outlet to cover it. (I like Doug Farrar's
view from the preseason, where he pointed out a lot of the basic things that McVay did to the offense.) Stealing
Andrew Whitworth away from a Bengals team that didn't understand his value was also helpful.
But it must be pointed out that McVay's passing offense is streaky, and that this game was another data point in favor of that. The Rams have five single games with a pass offense DVOA of 50% or higher. They now, after this game, have four games with a pass offense DVOA of 10% or lower. Both games against Seattle and Arizona have had the Rams with four of their five lowest pass offense DVOA ratings of the season.
The drop-off is pretty ridiculous in both phases.
Jared Goff has been reined in fairly well by McVay, but there are still times where the quarterback looks uncertain of his first read. And while Goff now is better at recognizing when he's under pressure and throwing the ball away for a zero-yard gain, he's still not going to create much outside of the structure of the play. Goff spent a lot of the early part of this game throwing balls away under pressure.
Los Angeles is obviously a threat to anyone with how they can win in all three phases of the game, but it's worth thinking about how exploitable Goff is if his division is so keyed into him already. McVay can scheme around and create the easy yards, but Goff isn't the elevator of this offense, he's merely the driver.
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More/related stuff here:
https://www.footballoutsiders.com/film-room/2018/film-room-falcons-defense
Perhaps the most impressive feat by the Falcons was how well they shut down the Rams' passing attack. Atlanta held
Jared Goff to 5.5 adjusted net yards per attempt, well below Goff's regular season average of 7.7 adjusted net yards per attempt, which led the NFL this season. Fifth-year cornerback
Robert Alford helped lead the charge in this department, as he had one of his best games of the season.
Most teams struggled to defend the Rams this year because they didn't have the personnel and athleticism to match Watkins and Robert Woods in man coverage. This wasn't the case at all for Atlanta. Having two accomplished cornerbacks like Alford and
Desmond Trufant gives Atlanta room to be a bit more simple and straightforward in their coverage assignments.
The Rams broke the huddle with a 3x1 trey formation. The Rams have three receiving options on the right side of the formation and one (Watkins) on the left. Since Alford is lined up on the one-receiver side, his assignment is to take Watkins in man coverage.
This is where Alford's physical gifts give him an edge over most cornerbacks in this situation. He has no problem going step for step down the field with Watkins. Goff further aided Alford by slightly underthrowing this ball.
This is actually an area of Alford's game that has improved since the arrival of Quinn and his coaching staff. In the past, these are plays that would have been huge defensive pass interference penalties, but Alford showed off the patience and discipline he has learned over the years as he waited to bat the ball down.
Limiting Watkins to one catch for 23 yards wasn't all Alford; it was a group effort. Jones had arguably the most impressive play on Watkins at the most critical juncture in the game.
The vast majority of NFL teams don't have a middle linebacker who can match average receivers in man coverage, let alone a good receiver like Watkins. On fourth down late in the fourth quarter, with a potential comeback opportunity on the line, Jones took Watkins in man coverage and had no problem executing his assignment.
One could argue (and many have) that Jones was a little grabby with his coverage on Watkins, but it's an impressive play nonetheless. Jones has emerged into a star in his second NFL season. He's a rare defensive weapon who has no issue covering tight ends, running backs, and even some of the top receivers in the game.
