I keep hearing the Goff-Palmer comparison being used to justify sitting Goff for the year, but it's not the best one.
Palmer was drafted #1 overall by a very bad Bengals team. The Bengals "earned" that pick by finishing 2-14 the year before so they weren't anxious to throw Palmer to the wolves in his rookie year. Teams were much more reluctant to do that back then. In addition they started the year off with Kitna who after losing the first 3 games never gave the Bengals any reason to bench him as he won 7 of the next 9 games and went 8-5 the rest of the season, and didn't suffer 2 straight losses again until the final game of the season. Kitna then won the Comeback Player Award for his 2013 performance. Why would the Bengals start Palmer when Kitna was doing fairly well. He was the 9th rated QB that year. Keenum is not that.
I think a much better comparison is what happened in Eli Manning's rookie year.
In 2004, Eli was drafted #1 overall by SD and the Giants traded up with them to get him. The Giants didn't start Eli until game 10. Kurt Warner started the first 9 games and went 5-4 before he was benched.
The W-L record went like this:
Warner starts first 9 games (5-4)...
L
W
W
W
W
L
W
L
L
Eli Starts last 7 games (1-6)...
L
L
L
L
L
L
W
Living in NY, the way I remember it Warner was an average at best QB here with ball security issues. The Giants started out 5-2 but Kurt was having trouble holding onto the ball, lots of turnovers, and that was the excuse the Giants used to play Eli after they lost 2 in a row and were 5-4. And they never looked back even though Eli looked pretty bad losing 6 out 7 games.
Even with the ball security issues Warner still looked better than Keenum and had a passer rating of 86.5 in 2004.
What I expect to happen is similar to what happened in NY. I think Fisher will play Keenum until he loses 2 straight games. Then we'll see Goff. I don't believe Fisher will go beyond that. Who knows when that will happen, but it will. And I don't see Fisher continuing to play Keenum past midseason after the Rams have their losing streak.
My guess is that we will see Goff no later than the Miami game in LA.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/30/2016 03:03AM by max.
