3 reasons why LA Rams needed to trade Jared Goff

The LA Rams did a pretty quick about-face in their support of young quarterback Jared Goff. After the 2018 season, one that ended with a Super Bowl defeat at the hands of the New England Patriots, he was given every complimentary term applied to an NFL quarterback. Two years later, the LA Rams couldn’t wait to get rid of him.

A pretty drastic change of heart, eh? Drastic, and unexplained.

Well, I don’t always do well with ‘unexplained’ events. After all that is said and done, the LA Rams have done so well so quickly because the team has sterilized the emotional components of their decision-making process.  The team has found a way to link production, compensation, and decisions about the roster in such a way that the results tend towards being correct, if not all-out heartless.

Sometimes it’s just too complex. Breakups are like that. After five years of a very emotionally charged relationship, moving on from Goff was very much like a breakup. It was a relationship all the way down to the ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ verbiage that soon followed out of the mouth of head coach Sean McVay.

In the end, it’s best to just conclude that there was no good guy/bad guy in all of this.

They are only and simply a team and a talented player on different tracks and paces to success. Time will judge more correctly which version was more capable of getting to the ultimate goal of winning the Super Bowl. But we can highlight some of the reasons why the LA Rams felt that now was the time to unhitch their train from Goff’s engine. Here are three reasons that stand out.

Reason III – Goff was losing the locker room

The LA Rams made the decision to move on from wide receiver Brandin Cooks after the 2019 season when his production dropped and his fragility escalated. Reports were that he was one more concussion from ending his NFL career were circulated, and his production plummeted to under 600 yards in 2019.

His statistics were so anemic, they competed with his rookie season for the worst of his career. Passing game production depends on three components: the pass protection, the receiver, and the quarterback. The LA Rams concluded that it was Cooks who had declined and opted to deal him away. The result?

While Cooks enjoyed one of the best receiving yards of his career, the LA Rams passing game weakened even further. That meant that the LA Rams had a problem with their offensive line or the quarterback. All indications were that the Rams starting five offensive linemen had a fantastic bounce-back season So by the process of elimination…?

LA Rams QB Jared Goff was losing the locker room

Don’t take my word for it. Veteran defensive lineman Michael Brockers is a wise NFL player who speaks volumes when he speaks. He recently commented to TMZ Sports that Matthew Stafford is ‘A level up’ on Jared Goff. If he is giving that as a quotable statement, then the locker room was thinking it before the season ended.

Goff is a young quarterback who found nearly instant success. Some conclude that Goff ‘cant read defenses’ or that he ’causes too many turnovers’.  Well, that’s what young quarterbacks do. Yes, he reached the Super Bowl in his third season. But that doesn’t change the fact that he is still improving. Will Arizona quarterback Kyler Murray reach the Super Bowl this year? Will Denver’s Drew Lock?  Will New York’s Daniel Jones? No.

Goff is still growing as a franchise quarterback. But the Rams need to win now. Superstars Aaron Donald, Jalen Ramsey, and others are becoming frustrated with knocking on the door but not getting to hoist the Lombardi Trophy. Stafford is there now.

Reason II – Production fell behind the pay

From the moment the 2018 season ended, the LA Rams offensive scoring production has been in a decline. Offense scoring plummeted. In 2017, the Rams were atop the NFL in scoring. In 2018, the Rams were second-overall in scoring. But by 2019, several factors combined to pull the Rams offense down.

As the offensive line began to fall apart at the seams that year, the Rams turned to the highly compensated players to pull the offense back together. Quarterback Jared Goff, wide receiver Brandin Cooks, and running back Todd Gurley were all relied upon to deliver. None did. In fact, the opposite effect occurred. They regressed.

The decline was significant enough to post the question of whether the trio stopped trying after they got paid? It’s a natural question because players are not only expected to perform at a higher level when signing a big contract, but they are also expected to make the players around them perform at a higher level as well.

Pay rose, production plummeted

That precipitous drop in production sealed the fates of both Gurley and Cooks in 2020. Gurley was outright released. Cooks was traded with a 2022 fourth-round pick for a 2020 second-round pick. Even while the Rams made the tough decisions to part ways with both Cooks and Gurley, the team reaffirmed their trust and commitment to Jared Goff.  Or did they?

Ultimately, the Rams did not add any veteran targets to the offense. In fact, the Rams pulled a second-verse-same-as-the-first maneuver on the offensive roster. The team returned WRs Robert Woods, Cooper Kupp, and Josh Reynolds. The team also welcomed back tight ends Tyler Higbee and Gerald Everett.  While the Ram did bring in rookie RBs Cam Akers and Xavier Jones, WRs Van Jefferson and Trishton Jackson, and TE Brycen Hopkins, the offense remained focused upon the tried-and-true veterans.

And the offense hit an all-time low of Sean McVay’s career.

Reason I – Accountability

The LA Rams insisted that quarterback Jared Goff improve his skills to complete passes off-schedule and out of position. One of the key responsibilities with bringing in new offensive coordinator Kevin O’Connell was to prioritize Goff’s training regiment, focus Goff on improving weaker areas of his game, and become a season-long sounding board of helping the young quarterback upon what the defense was doing and how he should direct the offensive to respond.

In fact, Goff focused upon those techniques in the offseason last year. And the results were noticeable in several early-season games. Goff’s accuracy was way up. He seemed to be far more comfortable in the pocket and even seemed to have a subtle elusiveness about him that wasn’t there before.

Early season progress vanished when the Rams faced the San Francisco 49ers and Miami Dolphins in two of a three-game stretch. Prior to those games, the LA Rams were 4-1, having swept the entire NFC East Division and losing an oh-so-close game to the Buffalo Bills on the road. But against the 49ers and the Dolphins? Nothing.

Fight fire with fire

McVay’s offensive philosophy is to fight fire with fire. So when defenses throw zero-cover blitzes at his offense, he retaliates with an empty backfield and the expectation that the quarterback will find the open receiver. That seldom seemed to happen. Of course, another way to defeat that is to push a running back through the saturated line of scrimmage into the open defensive backfield. That works too.

But it’s not McVay’s way.

In the end, McVay paid Goff. And more than ever, McVay counted upon Goff to deliver. But perhaps worst of all, players began to wonder if they would ever win with Goff under center. Someday was not an acceptable answer any longer. That timeline shrank dramatically this season to become ‘during my career’.

It finally registered. Other teams simply do not fear Goff under center, and the Rams own organization was beginning to lose respect for the young quarterback who just couldn’t deliver the big win. From the moment that light bulb flashed, the LA Rams head coach, and the entire organization needed a new face under center.

And no, it’s not Goff’s fault. You see, the LA Rams changed the timeline. The core players on this roster are peaking. This team is built to win now. And now, so is the quarterback.