How Jared Goff Convinced Me That He Should Be the Next Los Angeles Ram

Why I Made the Switch From “Team Wentz” to “Team Goff”

Despite the obvious difference in opponent skill level (generally, Wentz’s FCS competition is considered lesser than Goff’s FBS competition), both players displayed the ability and talent to be quality starters at the next level. I believe that the media and public have undermined this number one pick drama, making it out to be the “safe and boring” choice vs. the “risky and potentially great” choice.

First of all, the media’s infatuation with Wentz’s arm strength has unfairly belittled Goff’s own arm talent. Goff may not be the biggest slinger to declare for the NFL Draft, but he can put a lot of power behind short, intermediate, and deep throws when he needs to.

He also possesses the ability to drop the ball over the shoulders of his receivers anyway, focusing more on putting touch on the ball rather than delivering a bullet to his deep routes. In his college career, Jared Goff completed 43.8% of his deep throws. Wentz does this as well, but his hyped-up arm strength makes people think that Goff isn’t as capable of making the deep throw.

Secondly, Goff has more athleticism than people realize—since he’s been compared to Wentz, who has been deemed as the next Cam Newton/Andrew Luck when it comes to prototypical physical attributes.

Wentz seemingly dwarfs Goff with his 6’5”, 237-pound stature, but Jared Goff isn’t a small man. Sure, he’s less built like a wide-shouldered, skinny surfer at 215 pounds, but he does stands at a nice 6 foot, 4 inches. He has no problem seeing over his offensive line and can deliver from a high release point. Size isn’t everything when it comes to quarterbacks, but it shouldn’t be much of a problem once Goff puts on some more muscle to withstand the hits coming from Greg Robinson’s side.

The media also managed to blow up the story about Jared Goff’s “small”, 9-inch hands. We’re still not sure if this will have a negative effect on his NFL potential, but I do know that he fumbled 23 times (lost 11 fumbles) in his three years at Cal. This may be concerning, but we must take into account that his offensive line didn’t help him too much, allowing him to be sacked 81 times.

Speaking of that sack total, Goff totaled a whopping -114 rushing yards on 170 attempts in his three years at Cal. Yes—negative one hundred fourteen yards. It looks ugly, but since the NCAA counts the sacks as a loss of rushing yards, Goff’s rushing totals were brought down significantly.

Don’t worry—the kid can run when he needs to. You won’t mistake him for Russell Wilson, but he’s mobile enough to either create time in the pocket or take off.

Lastly, despite the notion that Goff may not be ready for the pro-system coming from Cal’s “Bear Raid” system that had him line up in the shotgun or pistol formation for 99.8% of his snaps, I’m confident that he’ll be ready to start for the Los Angeles Rams in Week 1 of the upcoming regular season.

At the NFL combine, he stated that he’s been “getting comfortable taking snaps under center” and that it hasn’t taken him “that long to get comfortable with“. Although many have failed to make the spread-to-pro transition(e.g. Jake Locker and Blaine Gabbert), quarterbacks such as Marcus Mariota and Cam Newton have made the jump smoothly so far.

Goff’s work ethic and excellent footwork should allow him to find success under center as well.

Next: Final Thoughts