Rams’ honesty about Goff is refreshing, but also somewhat surprising...

Rams' honesty about Jared Goff is refreshing, but also somewhat surprising

[theramswire.usatoday.com]

Cameron DaSilva

In a rare act of transparency, Les Snead and Sean McVay chose not to endorse Jared Goff as the team’s starting quarterback in 2021. McVay said Goff is “the quarterback right now” immediately after the Rams’ loss to the Packers, and then double-down a day later by not committing to him even being on the roster.

That set off some red flags about Goff’s future in Los Angeles, and those flags were raised even higher when Snead echoed the thoughts of McVay. He said Goff is “a Ram at this moment,” and said that while moving on from him and the money they gave him would be difficult, “anything can be done” in a salary cap league.

While both McVay’s and Snead’s comments were vague, they had a much easier option to avoid all of this speculation: just endorse Goff.

Snead was given multiple opportunities to do so, with Bill Plaschke practically begging the Rams GM to simply say Goff will be on the team in 2021. Snead chose not to.

“I’m giving you one more chance to say he’s your quarterback,” Plaschke said on the conference call.

“Oh, Jared Goff’s a Ram right now,” Snead replied. “So what’s the date? January 26. That’s a fact. That’s obvious. He’s No. 2 in wins since him and Sean partnered together. … That’s been a heck of a partnership. The real thing that should come out of this is, hey, we want to be a better offense and that includes Jared. That includes myself. That includes Sean. That includes his coaches.”


If McVay had said from the start, without question, that Goff is the team’s quarterback, there would be no speculation or questions about the Rams trading for Deshaun Watson or Matthew Stafford. There would be no dot-connecting between the Rams and Aaron Rodgers after Les Snead referenced the Packers QB’s “the future is a beautiful mystery” quote multiple times during that media session.

Avoiding controversy in the media would be nothing new to the Rams or any other team, either. They misled everyone about Todd Gurley’s knee before he was cut, saying he’s healthy and that they weren’t limiting his workload. McVay discussed how important Brandin Cooks was to the offense before shipping him to Houston.

By publicly discussing Goff’s uncertain future, the Rams might be hurting their own leverage when it comes to moving on from him – if that’s in fact what they plan to do. All 31 teams now know that the Rams aren’t committed to Goff, with Snead essentially saying they’ll do what’s necessary to move him.

Cutting Goff is almost impossible for Los Angeles, given his $65.5 million dead cap charge that comes with doing so. If the Rams hadn’t come out and opted not to endorse Goff, it’s unlikely many teams – if any at all –would’ve called them about a possible trade.

So maybe their honesty about Goff’s uncertain future doesn’t really matter. But the point still remains: This entire controversy could’ve been avoided if they just said he’s the quarterback.

Sure, it would’ve upset some people if they endorsed Goff and then traded him three months later. But again, it wouldn’t have been the first time that’s happened in the NFL.

Clearly, by going public with their displeasure is a way to send a message to Goff. And maybe that’s all they want to do – to let Goff know he must improve or he’ll be jettisoned like so many of his former teammates.

The honesty, even as vague and cryptic as it has been, is refreshing. It’s just surprising that the Rams chose not to avoid months of speculation and questions with their comments to the media in the last two weeks.