Buscaglia and Kapadia on Goff

I’ve seen their names before, not sure how good they are, but I thought it was worth posting. Seems like thoughtful analysis.

Joe Buscaglia and Sheil Kapadia on Goff...

When operating McVay’s scheme, throwing in rhythm and quickly identifying the target, Goff can play a beautiful brand of quarterbacking. He throws his targets open with anticipation and pinpoint accuracy when he has time in the pocket and a clear window. But Goff’s lack of mobility creates a true mystery, and, along with some perplexing tendencies, yields the high-variance outings we see every week.

Watching Goff’s film reveals a myth and a truth. The myth is that Goff crumbles against blitzes altogether, which is untrue. His film is rife with examples of Goff standing tall in the face of five, six or even seven rushers and delivering on time to his target. Even if the pressure is coming from the edges, Goff has shown he can climb the pocket and stay calm.

However, it is imperative that the Rams’ interior offensive linemen and pass-protecting running back frequently communicate and work as one. If they do not, and the pressure breaks through the middle, that’s where the truth of the film comes into play. Goff struggles against most interior pressure that breaks through, and not just when defenses call a blitz against him.

If Goff isn’t staying on script, he lacks the true improvisational ability that takes other quarterbacks to the next level. Goff has an outright aversion to taking sacks even when it’s the best option at times. When under that type of pressure, he’ll often sacrifice his footwork just to get the ball out of his hands. One way he does so is by swinging his hip open and his front foot to the side, causing his passes to sail and giving the defense a huge interception opportunity.

Goff opened up his left hip against Miami and threw off base, which, combined with the pressure, caused the pass to sail and allowed the Dolphins defender back in the play for an interception. He’ll also shift his weight back and throw off his back foot, which is bad form. There are some examples of Goff spinning out of pressures or escaping and finding a target downfield (see: vs. Chicago in Week 7, vs. Tampa Bay in Week 11). However, that is not the norm and he doesn’t have the elusiveness to do so consistently.

The Rams’ savvy emphasis is a quick-passing style to play to his strengths, and rollouts to the right to alleviate pressure on the quarterback. Otherwise, defenses would blitz the Rams more regularly and Goff wouldn’t have those spike games nearly as often.

What do the numbers say? To try to answer this question, we’ll use expected points added (EPA) from Sports Info Solutions. You can learn more about EPA here, or just view it as a metric that measures performance on every play. Entering Week 13, Goff averaged minus-0.63 EPA per play when pressured. That ranked 29th out of 31 qualifying quarterbacks. He had produced a positive result just 30.3 percent of the time when pressured. That ranked 25th.

But we know every quarterback performs worse when pressured. The question with Goff is whether pressure negatively affects him more than it does most quarterbacks. And the numbers suggest the answer is yes.

Goff had a difference of 0.93 EPA per play when pressured versus not pressured. That was the second-highest difference of any starting quarterback, behind only the Raiders’ Derek Carr. Said more simply: He goes from being the ninth-best quarterback in the league without pressure to 29th with pressure.

Looking at Goff’s performance over the last four years, it has been a consistent issue. He’s never performed better than league average when pressured.

What about Goff’s performance against the blitz? The numbers suggest he’s actually been really good when opponents send five or more rushers. Goff’s 56.3 percent success rate against the blitz was tied for third best entering Sunday’s game against the Cardinals, according to Sportradar. That’s actually slightly better than his 53.4 percent success rate when teams rushed four or fewer. It’s worth noting it appears to be an area in which he has really improved. Goff’s success rate against the blitz from 2017-19 was 46.7 percent. Last season, it was 41.6 percent, which ranked 23rd.

There are no absolutes with Goff against pressure. On film, he has shown an occasional ability to make positive plays in the face of pressure. The problem is they are so sporadic that it doesn’t dissuade teams from sending different blitz packages to try to rattle him, and that’s what makes it a big issue for the Rams. Opponents can negatively impact Goff by getting him to change his footwork and, at times, forcing him to make a reckless decision because he lacks the elusiveness to evade tackles and is so averse to taking sacks. It all depends on the type of pressure running at Goff as well. His usual struggles are against interior pressure of any kind, not only against the blitz.

Simple math makes defenses want to blitz against Goff to heighten their odds of getting home, although a savvy defensive tackle or a successful stunt between the end and tackle will do the trick all the same. If a defender is bearing down on Goff in the pocket, he usually isn’t getting out of it. So, while Goff can do well against pressure at times, more often than not, teams are making him pay with at best, an incompletion, or at worst, a back-breaking interception that changes the game.

There’s a significant dip in Goff’s performance when pressured. It’s fair to say pressure negatively impacts him more than almost every other starter. There are two ways for opponents to take advantage of that weakness. One is to cook up effective blitz schemes, but Goff has shown he can burn opponents when those blitzes don’t get home. And the other is to produce pressure with four, which is obviously the preferred method, but easier said than done.

Goff has consistently broken down against normal pressure, but we also have found notable improvements against blitz pressure, which he’s able to beat regularly.

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~ max ~
“The consciousness of good intentions disdains ambiguity.” - Alexander Hamilton



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 12/08/2020 06:34AM by max.