High strung or standards?: LA Rams McVay cussed out QB Goff

The LA Rams put on a happy face in 2020 it seems, perhaps too happy?  The behind-the-scenes real-life drama of the locker room had devolved into one very unhappy head coach and one badly shaken quarterback.  It was after the November 30, 2020 spanking at the hands of the San Francisco 49ers. It was not a pretty game. In fact, it triggered one Ramblin Fan contributor, Tareq Rafiq, to call for Jared Goff’s benching, and perhaps outright release. The finances didn’t afford the Rams’ organization that option, but the emotions certainly did.  Emotions ran hot outside of SoFi Stadium, but now we are learning that emotions may have been boiling over in the SoFi Stadium locker room.

ESPN’s Lindsey Thiry captures the tone and mood of that trigger point beautifully as she lays out the locker room after that game. Before the post-game press conference where head coach Sean McVay called out his quarterback to the media, he lambasted him in the locker room. Thiry set the stage this way:

"‘McVay glared in Goff’s direction, shouting that he needed to play better and couldn’t continue to turn the ball over. -per ESPN’s Lindsey Thiry"

This is not the first time that an NFL head coach unleashed a loud verbal barrage upon a quarterback after a three turnover outing.

But it was a new dynamic for the LA Rams lockerroom under head coach Sean McVay. It was a downturn of emotions, the type of fuel that becomes the source of heroics in some players, and causes others to shrink and wilt.