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

Sterilizing staff before the trade

NFL Coaches get phone calls constantly. After each season, positional coaches get calls from sports teams headhunters to test their interest in hiring elsewhere. Happy coaches simply decline. Unhappy coaches or unsettled situations trigger a mass exodus of coaches. Guess which scenario played out with the LA Rams after the 2020 season?

We noted that virtually any staff coach with the LA Rams who had a connection to Jared Goff was suddenly employed… elsewhere.  That pattern happened when the Rams moved on from RB Todd Gurley. Players are cut or traded. Coaches hire one elsewhere. But the force and speed of the team’s loss of coaches are far beyond the NFL ‘norm’.  And when we alluded to that fact, the reception was not well-received.

And yet now, today, we see that the organization was filled with torque. The team was heading in one direction offensively, and yet the head coach wanted to be heading in a positive direction. It was not intended as a slam to McVay then, nor now. It was simply the observation. Coaches were leaving.

The offense was struggling to score. Turnovers, though temporarily shunted, had become too much of an issue.  The Rams were preparing to move on from Jared Goff. And the rhetoric reflected that ‘need to part ways now’ narrative. It began when McVay declared that the Top-Pick of the 2016 NFL Draft would be fighting for his job in direct competition from an undrafted mobile quarterback. That said it all to us. Jared Goff would not be back.