Fisher adamant he won't rush Goff into a starting role at QB

Fisher adamant he won't rush Goff into a starting role at quarterback

By RYAN KARTJE / STAFF WRITER
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LOS ANGELES – In 21 seasons as an NFL head coach, Jeff Fisher has been charged with the development of just two rookie franchise quarterbacks. With each, he proceeded with industrial-strength kid gloves.

Steve McNair, the third overall pick in 1995, started just two games as a rookie in Houston, then four as a sophomore before finally rising to the top of the depth chart in his third season. He stayed for a decade.

By the time the Titans moved on, drafting Texas phenom Vince Young as McNair’s replacement, the league’s standard for developing quarterbacks had shifted. But true to form, Fisher waited as long as he could to throw the Heisman runner-up into the fire. After three straight losses to open the season, though, Young was named the starter in Week 4. He went on to win Rookie of the Year, leading the league in fourth-quarter comebacks. But the success was fleeting. Four years later, he was released.

It should come as no surprise then, given the past that colors this conservative approach, that Fisher has been in no hurry to anoint his latest rookie quarterback, Jared Goff, to unquestioned starter until absolutely, unabashedly necessary.

But trust this: Fisher understands the price the Rams paid to move to No. 1 and select Goff. Six picks. Two first-rounders. Plus a new city of prospective fans waiting to see what unfolds. Mishandling Goff would almost certainly mean a clean sweep of the front office and coaching staff.

This is the reality in today’s NFL, where the pressure to start quarterbacks early has never been higher, leaving far less room for nuance than in 1995, when McNair spent two seasons carrying a clipboard. All five quarterbacks selected at No. 1 since Oakland’s JaMarcus Russell in 2007 have been in the starting lineup for Week 1. None has had the weight of a rejuvenated franchise on his shoulders.

On the final day of OTAs in June, Fisher was asked whether Goff would get the majority of the team’s first-team reps at training camp, in order to prepare for a Week 1 debut on “Monday Night Football.”

“We haven’t changed our philosophy,” Fisher said. “We’re going to coach him to be successful. We’re not going to put him in with a chance to fail. That’s the most important thing in developing a young quarterback.”

A few hours before the question was posed, Goff stood under center, taking snaps with the first-team offense. It would be his worst practice yet as a Ram. Goff threw four interceptions, missing high and wide, never quite finding a rhythm. It was a dispiriting conclusion to an otherwise impressive three weeks. Shortly after practice, Fisher declared that incumbent Case Keenum would open camp as the starter.

But the question remains: With the Rams in a new city, desperate for a franchise face, how long can he possibly hold off the future?

• • •

When Kurt Warner signed with the Giants in 2004, after six years and a Super Bowl in St. Louis, the 34-year-old former league MVP understood that he was only a stopgap. Six weeks earlier, New York had traded for Eli Manning, the No. 1 overall pick, on draft night.

Manning was the new face of the franchise. Still, Warner hoped he could start 16 games and parlay it into another contract elsewhere.

Then, as Manning struggled through camp, the prospect didn’t seemed so farfetched. “Quite frankly, I was the better quarterback,” says Warner, now an NFL Network analyst.

Manning’s timing was off. He was clearly overwhelmed. Suffice to say, he looked like a rookie, drowning in an offense that was still over his head.

“Everything pointed to me being the starter,” Warner says. “The bigger question was for how long? How soon did they feel Eli would be ready? Or, really, how soon did they want to look to the future?”

The answer: Nine games. At 5-4, Warner was benched in favor of the overwhelmed rookie. Manning lost six straight, while “learning on the fly.”

All season, as Warner tried to help Manning navigate the offense, he was confident he was the better option to win. But sitting patiently through Manning’s growing pains, Giants coach Tom Coughlin told him it was for the good of the franchise. Two Super Bowls later, he doubts the coach regrets his decision.

“Coaches that are more secure and are willing to say, ‘I’m not going to start this guy right away, and let him learn,’ I still think those are always the best-case scenarios,” Warner said. “But we just know there’s a lack of patience in our business.”

Over the past decade, though, patience with a rookie quarterback drafted in the top-10 has hardly been a foolproof method for development. Since Fisher and the Titans drafted Young third overall in 2006, only six of the 16 quarterbacks selected in the top 10 failed to secure a starting spot for the season opener. Fifteen of 16 were starters by Week 5, with Russell as the exception. But among those six briefly held out – Young, Russell, Blaine Gabbert, Matt Leinart, Jake Locker, and Blake Bortles – there isn’t much in the way of NFL success. Their combined career record sits at a sad 71-109.

“The quarterbacks that end up really good hit the ground running,” says Pro Football Focus analyst Sam Monson. “They warp expectations.”

Warner sees tools in Goff that suggest he could be one of those special few – the footwork, the pocket presence, the quick release. Still, no matter when Goff starts, the former Rams star assures there will be growing pains. It’s how Goff navigates those obstacles that could very well define him.

“Being a starter Day 1 goes beyond how smart (Goff) is, how well he knows an offense, what kind of throws he can make,” Warner said. “It’s the demeanor that makes up who that player is. “How is he going to handle failure?”

• • •

Considering his 21-32 record in Berkeley, there was plenty of that to go around during Goff’s tenure, when Cal’s rebuild meant climbing out from a devastating 1-11 record in his freshman season. But it was in the midst of early struggles that former Cal offensive coordinator Tony Franklin saw what he thought to be flashes of true greatness.

In his first game against Northwestern, the stringy, 175-pound Goff threw for 450 yards, but gave away two pick-sixes in the second half, both of which were frustratingly tipped at the line. Franklin watched for signs of his quarterback deflating. But as the game went on, Goff only steeled in his resolve.

“He never, ever lost any confidence in himself,” Franklin said. “Even then.”

This resilience is one of many reasons Franklin is sure Goff could succeed right away in the NFL – assuming, of course, he’s put in a position to be successful. “There’s nothing worse than having a really talented guy, but then asking him to do stuff he can’t do,” he says.

Last season, Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota, drafted first and second overall, were introduced as their team’s starting quarterbacks before training camp began. But both the Bucs and Titans, respectively, took different approaches to keeping their quarterbacks comfortable and confident. With Mariota, that meant installing counter option fakes and half-field reads to ease his transition from Oregon’s spread offense. For Winston, who came from a pro-style system at Florida State, the Bucs more or less trusted him to adapt to the system they had in place. Both strategies, in their own ways, worked.

In Goff’s case, Fisher has been open about the Rams’ plans to ease his transition with a heavy dose of running back Todd Gurley. In an ideal world, Gurley’s constant presence would mean an extra defender in the box and more 1-on-1 matches deep and on the edges for Goff to exploit.

“Jeff Fisher’s offense has been at its happiest when he’s had an Eddie George to ride as far as he’ll take him,” Monson said. “All you’d really need Goff to do is to pick up the slack when Gurley can’t quite get it done on his own.”

In speaking with his former pupil, Franklin says Goff has noticed a number of similarities between Cal’s offensive concepts and those he’s learning in Los Angeles – somewhat contrary to the concerns about his ability to transition from an Air Raid offense at Cal.

How much Fisher or offensive coordinator Rob Boras will have to water down the game plan to cater to Goff remains to be seen. But during OTAs, Fisher gave some indication, refusing to simplify defensive coverages against Goff. “That’s just not our nature,” he said.

Of course, starting a rookie quarterback in Week 1 isn’t in Fisher’s nature, either. But with Goff, it’s fair to wonder if Fisher’s conservative approach of the past could become more progressive in a hurry. If Goff doesn’t surpass Keenum before Week 1, expect doubts, fair or not, to roll in, even as those closest to Goff trust that he would take it in stride.

In his first news conference introducing Goff, Fisher suggested that starting the rookie quarterback in Week 1 was “the goal.” In the coming weeks, he’ll undoubtedly be held to that, as Goff’s development – and his own decisions – will be put under the microscope.

But this time, in a city yearning for quick success and an impatient league desperate for positive returns on quarterbacks, there may not be enough time – or patience – for kid gloves.