FO: Jump Goff Has Made in Year 2 is Historic

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Week 9 Quick Reads
The jump Jared Goff has made in his second season is like nothing we have ever seen before. We put Goff's improvement in historical context, and determine what it might mean for his future.

One year ago at this time, Jared Goff was the backup quarterback behind Case Keenum on a Los Angeles Rams team that had just lost its fourth consecutive game, on its way to a tenth straight losing season. With the 2016 season lost, Keenum was soon sent to the bench and the Rams promoted Goff, the player they had traded six draft picks to acquire in that year's draft. What followed were seven of the worst starts by a quarterback we've seen in a long, long time. Including sacks, Goff averaged 3.75 yards per pass play, the worst by any quarterback with at least 200 passes since Akili Smith in 2000 -- and he did this in an era when passing statistics are going through the roof. By almost any measure, Goff was the worst quarterback in the league last year. Out of the top 32 qualifying passers that season, Goff was 28th in interception rate, 31st in completion rate, and dead last in sack rate, touchdown rate, yards per pass, and adjusted net yards per pass. And of course, he finished with a DVOA of -74.8%, the worst we have ever measured for any player with at least 200 passes.

Oh, what a difference a year makes. Goff leads the league in yards per pass, and can be found in the top ten of most other passing stats as well. He's also fourth in DVOA at 24.0% heading into Monday Night Football. Goff hasn't quite gone from worst to first among quarterbacks in one season, but he has absolutely gone from "perhaps the worst quarterback we have ever seen" to "one of the better starters in the league."

It should go without saying that we have never seen this kind of year-to-year improvement in a quarterback before. The difference between Goff's DVOA this year and last year is 98.8%. To say this is the biggest year-to-year jump on record would be a grotesque understatement. Consider this: before this season, the biggest jump in DVOA from one season to the next we had ever recorded belonged to Nick Foles, whose DVOA went from -20.4% in 2012 to 35.6% in 2013. That's a difference of 56.0% -- barely half of the improvement Goff has shown this year. Foles is in second place in this table, but he is closer to 144th place than he is to first.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/07/2017 02:33AM by LMU93.