Ever since I watched Goff's Cal highlights, I believed that he had certain undeniable talents:
- Vision
- Nerve for throwing to a tight window
- Arm strength with touch
- Accuracy
I don't think these qualities have ever been in question, and I think his level of skill in these areas at least approaches elite.
So what has the trouble been? Obviously, Goff was green in key developmental areas. And he had lousy coaching and talent. Blah, blah, blah ... we know about all that
But why did he look so bad so often last year? Why has he even this year had gaffes that make him look hapless? E.g. why did he not only give up the strip sack in PS game 3 but then go out and play tentatively in the next series? Why do people, including people who think well of him, so often have the sensation of vulnerability in his game?
I'm going to offer a perhaps odd sounding read of Goff's issues. I think they stem primarily from a poorly calibrated nerve. After all, two themes persist: people praise his toughness and resilience--including McV in recent comments--AND people say he looks tentative in the pocket. I think BOTH are apt assessments. But how could both be true?
OK, here comes the weird bit, and maybe you'll just figure I've gone nutso after so many years of Ram futility. I think Goff actually LACKS the kind of nervy sense of self-preservation most QBs have. He is essentially fearless in looking downfield while under pressure and releasing the ball into impossibly tough windows. He doesn't even flinch when he gets a bad result. He just blandly and fearlessly goes out there again to do it again.
And this leads him into trouble. It leads him to hang onto the ball. To throw some picks. Well, OK, nothing new there. Favre had about as many bad as good results from his fearlessness. But Favre never seemed tentative. He was decisively, aggressively right and wrong, but he never dithered.
So if Goff is essentially nerveless and fearless, why does he seem tentative fairly often? I think this is because he processes adversity and bad results differently. I think he becomes confused. I'm not talking about confusion about D schemes and the like. I think Goff becomes confused about his own internal wiring.
Hmmmm. I thought I had time left to get that ball off. I thought I saw a window. My wiring must be a bit off. I need to re-tune.I think Goff's nerveless confidence leads him to push the edge. Then, when he crosses the line, I think he begins to question the tuning of his internal clock and his range finding system. I don't sense this as a matter of nerve or self-doubt, but rather as the hesitation of an artillery officer who is not sure he calibrated the range settings correctly. Self-consciousness interferes with a guidance system that needs to be unconscious to be at its best.
The trigger for all of this, of course, is the speed of the NFL game. My sense is that Goff is still fine-tuning the calibration of his weapon control system. Each time he goes through either a success or a breakdown, he is adjusting for accuracy. When he is uncertain, he looks tentative. When he is confident, he steps up and lets it fly.
Now, you might say, well, duh. Isn't this what all young QBs go through?
Yes, it is. But I see Goff as being different in degree. I think he has less fear and dread than most young QBs do. I think the sensitivity of his reads is more precise than for most QBs. I think because of all this he rides the edge a bit more than most do. And I think he tends to become, not conscious of the looming threat or fretful for his own success, but simply hyper-conscious of the tuning of the awareness apparatus that lets him read defenses, sense the pressure, and deliver accurate darts to receivers.
And THEN I think he steps back, re-tunes, and goes back to work. As soon as he re-calibrates, he goes back to making plays as if the bad ones never happened.
Goff has a nerveless demeanor in playing that seems strange, and I think it takes time for coaches and teammates--not to mention fans and pundits--to re-calibrate their sense of QB attitude and performance. When he looks tentative and lost, it seems to be a different dynamic than it is for most QBs: it isn't a loss of self-belief or rising fear. It's just a stepping back to re-calibrate.
Obviously, this has been a very fanciful reading of the guy. It may strike you as gibberish or at least hopelessly subjective projection.
But I do think that Goff has shown us BOTH tentative indecision AND a fearless ability to step up and deliver. And he never seems defeated or crushed by either.
And of course it is perfectly natural to expect any young QB to struggle adapting to NFL game speed and to adapt over time.
I think we're seeing Goff calibrating his systems better and delivering excellence as he does so. I expect him to keep calibrating and re-calibrating his timing in the pocket and his judgment in delivering passes into windows. And as he does so, I think he'll play at that high level more and more consistently. He's already doing it pretty damn well, and I personally feel there's a good chance that, within a brief period of time, he'll be performing in excellence most of the time.
He has the eye, the arm, the accuracy, and most importantly of all ... the nerve!
