Jared Goff and the Los Angeles Rams will take on the New Orleans Saints in the NFC Championship on Sunday.
After all of the work put in since last January, Jared Goff and the Los Angeles Rams find themselves one win away from reaching the Super Bowl with a tough battle scheduled for Sunday afternoon on the road against the New Orleans Saints.
Despite coming up short during the regular season was a crushing blow for the Rams after falling to the Saints 45-35, the circumstances are much different this time around for Sean McVay‘s squad.
Between having Aqib Talib back on defense along with a new duo at running back in Todd Gurley and C.J. Anderson, Los Angeles is a completely different team from the one New Orleans faced back in November.
However, the Rams know the best chance of earning a win in this tough matchup against the NFC South champions could come down to the play of Goff, who is coming off his first career playoff win last weekend after defeating the Dallas Cowboys.
Numbers wise, Goff has certainly benefitted from playing under McVay over the last two seasons when seeing how the former California star’s numbers have improved each year.
With that being said, Goff took quite the criticism towards the end of the regular season for failing to come through for Los Angeles in key games against the Chicago Bears and Philadelphia Eagles. And while Goff certainly came up big to close out the regular season to help the Rams secure the No. 2 seed in the NFC, Sunday will be the biggest test of his career.
Expectations were obviously high for Goff back in 2016 when Los Angeles decided to trade up in the draft to go with the quarterback at No. 1, and seeing him in the NFC Championship this early in his career is truly amazing to see when looking at how some quarterbacks never get to this point.
Goff was able to get by without a touchdown pass in the Divisional Round against the Cowboys since the ground game was unbelievable for the Rams, but the chances of that happening again when facing the Saints are extremely slim.
This time around, Goff will need to be on top of his game for Los Angeles to have a fighting chance in this one, as many expect this meeting with New Orleans to be similar to the regular season battle with all of the scoring.
If this happens to be the case, a strong performance by Goff could not only help the Rams advance to the Super Bowl, but also silence any of the remaining critics who still don’t believe in his abilities to run this high-powered offense under McVay.