LA Rams HC McVay fumed over QB Goff’s inconsistency

After ESPN’s Lindsey Thiry’s story broke about the way LA Rams head coach Sean McVay fumed over the way his quarterback Jared Goff performed in 2019 and 2020, it triggered more than thoughts about football.

“You don’t need a weather vane to know which way the wind is blowing.” -Bob Dylan, on his album “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” 1965  (And yes, I know I’m probably dating myself here)

But there are a few lines in that same song that kinda resonated with me, ’cause it captured the breakdown of trust which happened last year between LA Rams head coach Sean McVay and quarterback Jared Goff, too:

"“Look out kidIt’s somethin’ you didGod knows whenBut you’re doin’ it againYou better duck down the alley way“-per Bob Dylan lyrics to Subterranean Homesick Blues"

Only there are no alleyways to duck down on an NFL sideline. And it seems hell hath no fury like a boy genius wunderkind head coach who feels scorned by The California Kid QB.

And all you had to do was look at the LA Rams sideline in a couple of games they pissed away last year to tell which way the wind was a-blowing for Goff. And it was a vile wind a-blowin’, indeed.

Convince me otherwise, but you can’t say it didn’t go down a little like this: “Hey, you’re making my offense look bad out there . . . and I’m not having it.” (well, the G rated version, at least)

McVay was a-stomping, a-pacing, eyes a-bulging, veins a-popping out of his neck fuming at the play of his quarterback at times last year. The dude was practically apoplectic. If we can’t fairly say he was overcome with anger, it’s certainly fair-game to say the coach became, well, animatedly indignant.

If body language speaks at all, it was a very bad optic for McVay. Understatement of the year.

Maybe he never quite flew off the handle (at least not any time caught on video or game-day footage), but he most definitely blew an internal fuse or two a time or two. In guarded or private moments, surely some things got hurled to the ground with a quickness, barbed criticisms delivered full strength. . . and full bore.

Any casual observer could readily see for themselves there was something amiss, something’s rotten in LA, to paraphrase Shakespeare. And as we all know, it eventually culminated in the Rams trading Goff away and then having to pay the Detroit Lions to swallow Goff’s fat contract, to boot.

Behind closed doors and in the unfriendly confines of the away team’s locker room, surely more explicit and heated exchanges took place between the two. We are all adults here, we just know that’s how it transpired. Sugar-coat it all you want. But however you wanna frame it, the relationship soured. The bloom was off the rose. This marriage could no longer be saved. Even after the situation was publicly called out as needing marriage counseling by NFL Network’s Steve Wyche.  Divorce was imminent.

It’s like that song “You’re Going Down” by the Sick Puppies, the one they always play at WWE wrestling events like SmackDown or Raw, or when UFC fighters are making their entrance into the octagon before a fight:

"“It’s been a long time comin’And the table’s turned around‘Cause one of us is goin’One of us is goin’ downOne of us is going down.”- per lyrics of You’re Going Down as performed by Sick Puppies"

Yep. That was about the size of it. One of them was going down. And it wasn’t gonna’ be McVay.