Packers, Rams, or Saints have Bears in the most prominent positions.
Saints win would probably be attributed to Brees and Payton (unless Cam comes up with some crazy scoop-and-score to win the game). Rams win would probably be seen as the defense and McVay as an offensive mastermind. I think a Packers win would mainly be recognized as Rodgers by the media--especially after the insane year he's having.
Cam Jordan was robbed as he only placed 3rd for the NVP, selected by fan votes. The Nickelodeon Valuable Player prize of course lost all credibility when it went to Mitch Trubisky. Iin the post-game interview on Nickelodeon, that kid interviewer really wanted to slime Cam (or Saints head coach Sean Payton) but he refused.
I believe I read that the Packers-Rams game will be only the 7th time two QBs from the same college have played each other in the playoffs. Just wish they could have met in the NFC Championship round instead.
I wish we had better AFC representation so they could meet in the Super Bowl. Schwartz is on a dangerous team, but no one will credit or pay attention to the right tackle. The biggest Cal name in the AFC is Keenan Allen compared to the NFC's Marvin Jones, DeSean Jackson, Ron Rivera, Cam Jordan, Goff, and Rodgers.
Chad Hansen had a big game (to garner fantasy attention in deep leagues) late last year when he latched on with the Houston Texans. Texans of course have their own offseason issues with the fate of DeShaun Watson, so we shall see if Hansen's stay there and the productivity will last.
We used to have Vereen, CJ Anderson, Forsett, and even Lynch for a while in AFC a few years ago. Vereen and Anderson played in multiple super bowls. Sadly Tedford players are starting to disappear from NFL and Dykes/Wilcox hasn't produced star talent in the NFL except Goff.
Khalfani is on Arizona's practice squad. I was hopeful for Laird this year when other RBs got cut, but he ended up getting fewer touches, so I'm concerned about his future there.
O-line like Mack and Schwartz absolutely get recognized by the football junkies, but the average audience isn't going to care and there won't be the same recognition for Cal.
Teams practice what to do when the pocket breaks down; they run the scramble drill. Typically receivers have their pre-determined routes, but they can change their routes when they see that the QB is under pressure. So if the X receiver is running a deep go-route, he has a sense of timing of when he should be receiving the ball (if he's open, e.g. the QB is making a 5-step drop, and the receiver can run 20 yards in that time, so he's expecting the ball 20 yards downfield), so when he turns to look for the ball and he sees the QB rolling out of the pocket, he knows to modify his go-route to some other predetermined route, e.g. a comeback route to the boundary (and if you think about it, if he was open, the QB could have thrown the pass deep before that pocket broke down, so if he's not open, it means the defender is likely behind him, and if the defender is behind him, a comeback route is running away from where the defender is, i.e. he'd be wide open). Basically, it might look like improv (no one is open, QB is under pressure and he's been running around in the backfield for 5 seconds, let me run somewhere else to get open), but usually they're running routes according to some pre-specified rules specifically for this situation so that the QB has an idea where to look for an open man under pressure (e.g. the X receiver should be coming back to the ball down the boundary, let me look for him first). Basically, the receivers should go where they aren't. If you're deep then come back, if you're shallow then go deep, etc.
It's definitely a skill to both stay calm under pressure, keep your head up and look for the open man (while someone is simultaneously trying to kill you), and some QBs even struggle to throw on the run in these situations, because they don't get to set their feet and thus you need to compensate with arm strength. This isn't a scramble drill play, but here's Jared Goff showing off his impressive arm strength and accuracy while throwing on the run: https://www.nfl.com/videos/can-t-miss-play-kupp-catches-pinpoint-td-over-two-vikes-defenders-263332
I'll take Lawrence because of his overall body of work since his first college snaps. Wilson has done his thing on a lesser scale for the back half of '18,'19, and most of '20. I really don't value what he did this season unless it was against BSU (great), SDSU(solid), and CCU(poor) because those were top tier D's. He can extend plays, has great athleticism, and can run zone read. He needs to learn to throw the ball away more, take checkdowns, and improve Football IQ more. Lawrence is a Deshaun Watson style pick as opposed to Wilson, Fields, and Lance who are Trubisky style picks who I'd be wary of.
He has an excellent nose for pressure and can easily get first downs with his legs if need be. Also, Garbers seemed a bit slower this year than 2019, maybe because his weight is up to 225.
"Goff will never be a top tier performer because he's not very mobile at all."
Could not disagree more. QB elusiveness/mobility is merely just one of many skills a QB can have. We have two QBs currently in the playoffs that are probably near the bottom in the league in elusiveness, and yet at least one of them will be in the NFC Championship game: Tom Brady and Drew Brees. They've been dominating for a long time, as was an aging Peyton Manning before his neck injury, and they're some of the best QBs of all time. On the other end of the spectrum from them was Michael Vick, probably the fastest and most elusive QB in recent history, and yet Vick never even made it to a Super Bowl. Just look at the Super Bowl winning QBs since 2000 and tell me which ones are mobile (spoiler: it's basically Patrick Mahomes last year, Russell Wilson in 2013, and that's about it). The rest of the list is Brady, Brees, Rodgers, the Mannings, and a couple other one-offs (Flacco, Roethlisberger, etc). Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Peyton Manning, etc. were never threats to run the ball, but they obviously had enough other QB skills to compensate (like the ability to read a defense, know what the other team was trying to do, always be able to find an open receiver, etc). Michael Vick could always make plays with his feet and had absurd amounts of athleticism, but he had poor awareness and decision-making (while someone like Peyton Manning had off-the-charts levels of decision-making and awareness, as he'd often spend 20 seconds audibling new plays at the line every single play to counter whatever a defense was doing). To take a crude analogy, it's like if you were building a custom character in Madden, it would obviously be a mistake to dump all your QB's skill points into mobility, as it's just one skill of many that affect a QB's success. (Side note: I've never actually played Madden so I don't even know if this is a thing you can do, but it sounds plausible).
Jared Goff absolutely has the potential to be a top tier NFL QB. I do watch all the Rams games and I know he's struggled late this season, but I think he's in a bit of a mental slump (and now he's just 2 weeks off thumb surgery, so he's nowhere near 100% now). Goff's not a dual-threat QB, but he actually does move pretty well in the pocket, it's just been harder to tell on the Rams as they've had one of the worst offensive lines in the NFL for a couple of those years (and the year they had a quality O-Line, they made it all the way to the Super Bowl). Goff's also more of a threat to run the ball than someone like Peyton Manning ever was. Goff hasn't done as well under pressure in the NFL as he did in college, but I don't think his struggles have anything to do with a lack of mobility.
Argh, I wrote a really long comment addressing this, but I accidentally refreshed the page and lost it, so I am retyping this from scratch.
I think Goff played fantastic given that it was 12 days after his surgery for a broken thumb. This is outside speculation, but it looks like a breakdown in the relationship between Goff and McVay. I can see why both sides are frustrated-- McVay is frustrated that Goff's individual mistakes have led to losses late in the season, and Goff is frustrated that his coach isn't putting him in a position to succeed, and I obviously want to side with Goff on this one.
I like McVay's innovative offensive gameplans, but I think some of the blame has to fall on him for some of the play-calling and failure to adjust late in the season/playoffs after other teams start to figure him out. Consider the play-calling when the Rams were only down 25-18 to GB in the 4th quarter, for instance. I think Goff was in a slump late in the season where it looked like he lost his confidence, and he was being torn apart by the media and his coach for his turnovers, and this just compounded the problem. For example, when he had no one open on 3rd and long and tried to run for it against the Seahawks (2nd SEA matchup of the regular season), he got blown up on a hit and fumbled the ball. The next week, in the same situation against the Jets, he again ran for it, but this time slid before contact in order to avoid fumbling the ball... and thus slid just shy of the first down, forcing a punt. He did the same thing with his reads. I know you're a fan of dual-threat QBs, and they can often "create" a play of their own when no one is open by running the ball themselves. I want you to consider that pocket-passer QBs like Goff (or Brady or Brees or Manning, etc) can also "create" plays by making difficult throws to receivers that aren't open, which requires a high degree of accuracy, but also involves the risk of an interception (just the way a QB running the ball risks fumbling it on a hit). One of Goff's strengths is his accuracy (particularly on the deep ball), but sometimes he would have no one open, make a dangerous throw, and get intercepted. He gets torn apart for the turnovers, and when faced with the same read in a later week, he would just eat the sack instead. This is what he was coached to do-- stop turning over the ball, just lean on the defense to win games-- in other words, a low risk/low reward style of play. Do you know what you call a QB that plays like this? A game manager. And you don't pay $134 million to a QB to be a game manager for you. Goff gets paid the big bucks because he SHOULD be able to create those plays out of nothing, make those throws into ridiculously small windows that most other pro QBs can't make.
And so far, fans are frustrated with him because he's not making those plays, or "earning" his salary. But I again argue that this is because he isn't being put in a position to succeed by his coaching staff.
Take a look at McVay's gameplans. He is able to outscheme a lot of the coaches in the NFL, but eventually an opposing team figures out how to stop him. Take 2018 for instance-- the 2018 Lions first started probing the Rams weaknesses, the Bears put it all together, and the Patriots defense in the Super Bowl took it to the next level and completely dismantled the Rams offense. McVay scrapped his offense in the off-season and came up with a whole new system, but NFL defense will always catch back up. (This year, it was the Miami Dolphins-- led by coach Brian Flores, the Patriots DC in that 2018 Super Bowl against the Rams-- that figured out how to stop the Rams, and Goff struggled in the second half of the season.
I think that Goff isn't in a position to succeed because of the pieces around him. In the game against Green Bay, Goff had ~2 seconds to throw before he was under immediate pressure (OL Bobby Evans was getting beaten constantly throughout the entire game), whereas Aaron Rodgers had 4+ seconds every snap. Given long enough, eventually receivers will get open, but with ~2 seconds you need to either make a short/safe throw, or throw a difficult pass to a receiver who hasn't had enough time to get much separation yet. This is a pass with a lower chance of success, and multiplied by the number of plays in the game, you see how Goff ends up with as many turnovers as he did. Opposing defenses figured out how to force the Rams offense into these situations, and while Goff can make some tough throws, it's an undue burden on a QB to do that all game, while at the same time pressuring him not to make any turnovers.
And why were defenses able to do this? I think there's three elements to this. (1) The Rams offensive line is terrible. The one year they had a decent offensive line, they made it all the way to the Super Bowl. (2) The Rams don't have a deep threat receiver. Cooper Kupp is an excellent slot receiver, and Robert Woods is probably the best blocking WR out there, but they don't have a receiver that can take the top off a defense. Goff's biggest strength is his accuracy on deep balls (remember basically any of his TD passes at Cal?). In 2018, Goff had Brandin Cooks as a deep threat receiver, and that's the year they made it to the Super Bowl. Without this, defenses can play with a condensed field, and thus make all of the throwing windows that much smaller for Goff. (3) One of McVay's off-season adjustments after last season was realizing that the offensive line was bad, so he designed a whole offense based on play-action bootlegs and having the QB roll out of the pocket, which takes pressure off the offensive line. However, this puts that pressure on Goff instead, who now has to throw on the run (which is more difficult than sitting comfortably in the pocket), find an open receiver in a limited amount of time, and if no one is open, he needs to be able to run the ball himself. This is an offensive scheme that would work well with a dual-threat QB, but this is clearly not a strength of Goff, and why I think this falls on McVay. Instead of building an offense around his QB's strengths, he came up with a clever system... better suited to a different QB. You can have the best scheme ever, but it doesn't matter if you don't have the personnel to run it. Remember Kevin Sumlin, Arizona's head coach that was just fired? Sumlin earned renown for his flavor of the Air Raid offense at Houston (leading them to a 12-0 record), and doing the same thing at Texas A&M (leading them to an 11-2 record behind Heisman winner Johnny Manziel). When he took over at Arizona, he had a phenomenal athlete at QB with Khalil Tate, who had set QB rushing records the previous year with a couple 300+ rushing yard games-- which is eye-popping for a RB, let alone a QB. What did Sumlin do? He ran his exact same offense, asked Khalil Tate to sit in the pocket, read defenses, and make quick decisions with his throws. This unfortunately is not in Tate's wheelhouse, and he went 9-20 at Arizona before being fired (and don't forget their 70-7 beatdown by rival ASU, showing that Arizona wasn't even close to competitive with other Pac-12 teams).
So Goff is being shoehorned into an offensive system that's not suited to his strengths, he has an awful offensive line which gives him very little time to throw, and he doesn't have a deep threat receiver to stretch the field. The deck is already stacked against him, and then his coach blames him for the turnovers that happen as a result and leaves him to dry in the media. Goff was criticized for his turnovers, so even with a broken thumb, he did exactly what he was coached to do, and didn't turn the ball over once in the playoffs. Then after all that, his coach makes some snarky "Well I don't know who will be QB next year" type of comments. So yes, I can see why Goff would be frustrated with McVay. If the Rams can fix these 3 issues in the off-season, I think they can make another Super Bowl run. If they don't, well, who knows.
I forgot to mention: although Khalil Tate doesn't have the chops to make it as an NFL QB, he definitely has the athleticism to make it in the NFL at a different position (kind of like Tim Tebow). Look for Khalil Tate to make it somewhere as a wide receiver next year. This is probably a lot harder for him given the way the pandemic has affected the NFL Combine, open workouts, NFL tryouts, etc., but I think Tate can still make it on a roster somewhere if given the opportunity.
John Wolford is inactive for this game. Goff will start with Blake Bortles, who has not played at all in 2020 (and only threw 2 passes as a Ram player in 2019) as the backup.
25-18 cool 2 point conversion
Great play call.
Both playing well! A win-win for us!
Rams don’t have a chance if they can’t pressure Rodgers
So should we make this an open thread?
Yeah, this is doubling as an open thread. That's why we put it up so late in the week and bumped it back up today.
For my open discussion, have they mentioned on-air that Goff and Rodgers both went to Cal?
I think pregame they had a feature about it
Right after the game ended, they had a nice mention of "the two Cal quarterbacks" meeting midfield.
Sure. Jared Goff is not an elite qb.
Who should I be rooting for here? Is one outcome better for Cal recruiting then the other?
Packers, Rams, or Saints have Bears in the most prominent positions.
Saints win would probably be attributed to Brees and Payton (unless Cam comes up with some crazy scoop-and-score to win the game). Rams win would probably be seen as the defense and McVay as an offensive mastermind. I think a Packers win would mainly be recognized as Rodgers by the media--especially after the insane year he's having.
It's important for Rodgers to win one more Super Bowl before he retires. Others got more time.
It's a shame that Goff isn't at full strength, but this should be a fun matchup anyway.
Cam Jordan was robbed as he only placed 3rd for the NVP, selected by fan votes. The Nickelodeon Valuable Player prize of course lost all credibility when it went to Mitch Trubisky. Iin the post-game interview on Nickelodeon, that kid interviewer really wanted to slime Cam (or Saints head coach Sean Payton) but he refused.
Good luck to Aaron and Jared. One of them will come out victorious over the other...
I believe I read that the Packers-Rams game will be only the 7th time two QBs from the same college have played each other in the playoffs. Just wish they could have met in the NFC Championship round instead.
I wish we had better AFC representation so they could meet in the Super Bowl. Schwartz is on a dangerous team, but no one will credit or pay attention to the right tackle. The biggest Cal name in the AFC is Keenan Allen compared to the NFC's Marvin Jones, DeSean Jackson, Ron Rivera, Cam Jordan, Goff, and Rodgers.
Chad Hansen had a big game (to garner fantasy attention in deep leagues) late last year when he latched on with the Houston Texans. Texans of course have their own offseason issues with the fate of DeShaun Watson, so we shall see if Hansen's stay there and the productivity will last.
We used to have Vereen, CJ Anderson, Forsett, and even Lynch for a while in AFC a few years ago. Vereen and Anderson played in multiple super bowls. Sadly Tedford players are starting to disappear from NFL and Dykes/Wilcox hasn't produced star talent in the NFL except Goff.
Muhammad is on the practice squad somewhere, Laird is a back up at Miami, so only 2 former Cal running backs in the NFL now.
Khalfani is on Arizona's practice squad. I was hopeful for Laird this year when other RBs got cut, but he ended up getting fewer touches, so I'm concerned about his future there.
When did I say Goff played for Wilcox?
Your new reply looks exactly the same as before.
It doesn't help that Schwartz is injured and hasn't played lately, just when he was finally getting noticed as a stud RT.
O-line like Mack and Schwartz absolutely get recognized by the football junkies, but the average audience isn't going to care and there won't be the same recognition for Cal.
Teams practice what to do when the pocket breaks down; they run the scramble drill. Typically receivers have their pre-determined routes, but they can change their routes when they see that the QB is under pressure. So if the X receiver is running a deep go-route, he has a sense of timing of when he should be receiving the ball (if he's open, e.g. the QB is making a 5-step drop, and the receiver can run 20 yards in that time, so he's expecting the ball 20 yards downfield), so when he turns to look for the ball and he sees the QB rolling out of the pocket, he knows to modify his go-route to some other predetermined route, e.g. a comeback route to the boundary (and if you think about it, if he was open, the QB could have thrown the pass deep before that pocket broke down, so if he's not open, it means the defender is likely behind him, and if the defender is behind him, a comeback route is running away from where the defender is, i.e. he'd be wide open). Basically, it might look like improv (no one is open, QB is under pressure and he's been running around in the backfield for 5 seconds, let me run somewhere else to get open), but usually they're running routes according to some pre-specified rules specifically for this situation so that the QB has an idea where to look for an open man under pressure (e.g. the X receiver should be coming back to the ball down the boundary, let me look for him first). Basically, the receivers should go where they aren't. If you're deep then come back, if you're shallow then go deep, etc.
It's definitely a skill to both stay calm under pressure, keep your head up and look for the open man (while someone is simultaneously trying to kill you), and some QBs even struggle to throw on the run in these situations, because they don't get to set their feet and thus you need to compensate with arm strength. This isn't a scramble drill play, but here's Jared Goff showing off his impressive arm strength and accuracy while throwing on the run: https://www.nfl.com/videos/can-t-miss-play-kupp-catches-pinpoint-td-over-two-vikes-defenders-263332
Go Bears!
he's not going 1 lol, Lawrence is automatic 1 unless Meyer takes Fields for whatever reason.
I'll take Lawrence because of his overall body of work since his first college snaps. Wilson has done his thing on a lesser scale for the back half of '18,'19, and most of '20. I really don't value what he did this season unless it was against BSU (great), SDSU(solid), and CCU(poor) because those were top tier D's. He can extend plays, has great athleticism, and can run zone read. He needs to learn to throw the ball away more, take checkdowns, and improve Football IQ more. Lawrence is a Deshaun Watson style pick as opposed to Wilson, Fields, and Lance who are Trubisky style picks who I'd be wary of.
not even a question its Rodgers, he's houdini for eluding the rush.
He has an excellent nose for pressure and can easily get first downs with his legs if need be. Also, Garbers seemed a bit slower this year than 2019, maybe because his weight is up to 225.
You should watch Aaron Rodgers play. Especially since we are all stuck at home on weekends.
"Goff will never be a top tier performer because he's not very mobile at all."
Could not disagree more. QB elusiveness/mobility is merely just one of many skills a QB can have. We have two QBs currently in the playoffs that are probably near the bottom in the league in elusiveness, and yet at least one of them will be in the NFC Championship game: Tom Brady and Drew Brees. They've been dominating for a long time, as was an aging Peyton Manning before his neck injury, and they're some of the best QBs of all time. On the other end of the spectrum from them was Michael Vick, probably the fastest and most elusive QB in recent history, and yet Vick never even made it to a Super Bowl. Just look at the Super Bowl winning QBs since 2000 and tell me which ones are mobile (spoiler: it's basically Patrick Mahomes last year, Russell Wilson in 2013, and that's about it). The rest of the list is Brady, Brees, Rodgers, the Mannings, and a couple other one-offs (Flacco, Roethlisberger, etc). Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Peyton Manning, etc. were never threats to run the ball, but they obviously had enough other QB skills to compensate (like the ability to read a defense, know what the other team was trying to do, always be able to find an open receiver, etc). Michael Vick could always make plays with his feet and had absurd amounts of athleticism, but he had poor awareness and decision-making (while someone like Peyton Manning had off-the-charts levels of decision-making and awareness, as he'd often spend 20 seconds audibling new plays at the line every single play to counter whatever a defense was doing). To take a crude analogy, it's like if you were building a custom character in Madden, it would obviously be a mistake to dump all your QB's skill points into mobility, as it's just one skill of many that affect a QB's success. (Side note: I've never actually played Madden so I don't even know if this is a thing you can do, but it sounds plausible).
Jared Goff absolutely has the potential to be a top tier NFL QB. I do watch all the Rams games and I know he's struggled late this season, but I think he's in a bit of a mental slump (and now he's just 2 weeks off thumb surgery, so he's nowhere near 100% now). Goff's not a dual-threat QB, but he actually does move pretty well in the pocket, it's just been harder to tell on the Rams as they've had one of the worst offensive lines in the NFL for a couple of those years (and the year they had a quality O-Line, they made it all the way to the Super Bowl). Goff's also more of a threat to run the ball than someone like Peyton Manning ever was. Goff hasn't done as well under pressure in the NFL as he did in college, but I don't think his struggles have anything to do with a lack of mobility.
Argh, I wrote a really long comment addressing this, but I accidentally refreshed the page and lost it, so I am retyping this from scratch.
I think Goff played fantastic given that it was 12 days after his surgery for a broken thumb. This is outside speculation, but it looks like a breakdown in the relationship between Goff and McVay. I can see why both sides are frustrated-- McVay is frustrated that Goff's individual mistakes have led to losses late in the season, and Goff is frustrated that his coach isn't putting him in a position to succeed, and I obviously want to side with Goff on this one.
I like McVay's innovative offensive gameplans, but I think some of the blame has to fall on him for some of the play-calling and failure to adjust late in the season/playoffs after other teams start to figure him out. Consider the play-calling when the Rams were only down 25-18 to GB in the 4th quarter, for instance. I think Goff was in a slump late in the season where it looked like he lost his confidence, and he was being torn apart by the media and his coach for his turnovers, and this just compounded the problem. For example, when he had no one open on 3rd and long and tried to run for it against the Seahawks (2nd SEA matchup of the regular season), he got blown up on a hit and fumbled the ball. The next week, in the same situation against the Jets, he again ran for it, but this time slid before contact in order to avoid fumbling the ball... and thus slid just shy of the first down, forcing a punt. He did the same thing with his reads. I know you're a fan of dual-threat QBs, and they can often "create" a play of their own when no one is open by running the ball themselves. I want you to consider that pocket-passer QBs like Goff (or Brady or Brees or Manning, etc) can also "create" plays by making difficult throws to receivers that aren't open, which requires a high degree of accuracy, but also involves the risk of an interception (just the way a QB running the ball risks fumbling it on a hit). One of Goff's strengths is his accuracy (particularly on the deep ball), but sometimes he would have no one open, make a dangerous throw, and get intercepted. He gets torn apart for the turnovers, and when faced with the same read in a later week, he would just eat the sack instead. This is what he was coached to do-- stop turning over the ball, just lean on the defense to win games-- in other words, a low risk/low reward style of play. Do you know what you call a QB that plays like this? A game manager. And you don't pay $134 million to a QB to be a game manager for you. Goff gets paid the big bucks because he SHOULD be able to create those plays out of nothing, make those throws into ridiculously small windows that most other pro QBs can't make.
And so far, fans are frustrated with him because he's not making those plays, or "earning" his salary. But I again argue that this is because he isn't being put in a position to succeed by his coaching staff.
Take a look at McVay's gameplans. He is able to outscheme a lot of the coaches in the NFL, but eventually an opposing team figures out how to stop him. Take 2018 for instance-- the 2018 Lions first started probing the Rams weaknesses, the Bears put it all together, and the Patriots defense in the Super Bowl took it to the next level and completely dismantled the Rams offense. McVay scrapped his offense in the off-season and came up with a whole new system, but NFL defense will always catch back up. (This year, it was the Miami Dolphins-- led by coach Brian Flores, the Patriots DC in that 2018 Super Bowl against the Rams-- that figured out how to stop the Rams, and Goff struggled in the second half of the season.
I think that Goff isn't in a position to succeed because of the pieces around him. In the game against Green Bay, Goff had ~2 seconds to throw before he was under immediate pressure (OL Bobby Evans was getting beaten constantly throughout the entire game), whereas Aaron Rodgers had 4+ seconds every snap. Given long enough, eventually receivers will get open, but with ~2 seconds you need to either make a short/safe throw, or throw a difficult pass to a receiver who hasn't had enough time to get much separation yet. This is a pass with a lower chance of success, and multiplied by the number of plays in the game, you see how Goff ends up with as many turnovers as he did. Opposing defenses figured out how to force the Rams offense into these situations, and while Goff can make some tough throws, it's an undue burden on a QB to do that all game, while at the same time pressuring him not to make any turnovers.
And why were defenses able to do this? I think there's three elements to this. (1) The Rams offensive line is terrible. The one year they had a decent offensive line, they made it all the way to the Super Bowl. (2) The Rams don't have a deep threat receiver. Cooper Kupp is an excellent slot receiver, and Robert Woods is probably the best blocking WR out there, but they don't have a receiver that can take the top off a defense. Goff's biggest strength is his accuracy on deep balls (remember basically any of his TD passes at Cal?). In 2018, Goff had Brandin Cooks as a deep threat receiver, and that's the year they made it to the Super Bowl. Without this, defenses can play with a condensed field, and thus make all of the throwing windows that much smaller for Goff. (3) One of McVay's off-season adjustments after last season was realizing that the offensive line was bad, so he designed a whole offense based on play-action bootlegs and having the QB roll out of the pocket, which takes pressure off the offensive line. However, this puts that pressure on Goff instead, who now has to throw on the run (which is more difficult than sitting comfortably in the pocket), find an open receiver in a limited amount of time, and if no one is open, he needs to be able to run the ball himself. This is an offensive scheme that would work well with a dual-threat QB, but this is clearly not a strength of Goff, and why I think this falls on McVay. Instead of building an offense around his QB's strengths, he came up with a clever system... better suited to a different QB. You can have the best scheme ever, but it doesn't matter if you don't have the personnel to run it. Remember Kevin Sumlin, Arizona's head coach that was just fired? Sumlin earned renown for his flavor of the Air Raid offense at Houston (leading them to a 12-0 record), and doing the same thing at Texas A&M (leading them to an 11-2 record behind Heisman winner Johnny Manziel). When he took over at Arizona, he had a phenomenal athlete at QB with Khalil Tate, who had set QB rushing records the previous year with a couple 300+ rushing yard games-- which is eye-popping for a RB, let alone a QB. What did Sumlin do? He ran his exact same offense, asked Khalil Tate to sit in the pocket, read defenses, and make quick decisions with his throws. This unfortunately is not in Tate's wheelhouse, and he went 9-20 at Arizona before being fired (and don't forget their 70-7 beatdown by rival ASU, showing that Arizona wasn't even close to competitive with other Pac-12 teams).
So Goff is being shoehorned into an offensive system that's not suited to his strengths, he has an awful offensive line which gives him very little time to throw, and he doesn't have a deep threat receiver to stretch the field. The deck is already stacked against him, and then his coach blames him for the turnovers that happen as a result and leaves him to dry in the media. Goff was criticized for his turnovers, so even with a broken thumb, he did exactly what he was coached to do, and didn't turn the ball over once in the playoffs. Then after all that, his coach makes some snarky "Well I don't know who will be QB next year" type of comments. So yes, I can see why Goff would be frustrated with McVay. If the Rams can fix these 3 issues in the off-season, I think they can make another Super Bowl run. If they don't, well, who knows.
I forgot to mention: although Khalil Tate doesn't have the chops to make it as an NFL QB, he definitely has the athleticism to make it in the NFL at a different position (kind of like Tim Tebow). Look for Khalil Tate to make it somewhere as a wide receiver next year. This is probably a lot harder for him given the way the pandemic has affected the NFL Combine, open workouts, NFL tryouts, etc., but I think Tate can still make it on a roster somewhere if given the opportunity.
so who do you think will start?
The cheater Tom "I fumbled" Brady isn't mobile...
John Wolford is inactive for this game. Goff will start with Blake Bortles, who has not played at all in 2020 (and only threw 2 passes as a Ram player in 2019) as the backup.