A lot of our time over the past few weeks has been focused on which quarterback the Washington Football Team is likely to end up with at the start of the 2021 season.
Many have their eyes set on guys like Deshaun Watson, or Matthew Stafford, or Dak Prescott, or Matt Ryan; all guys who could be picked up in free agency or via trade for some high-prices. However, a new name has entered the chat: Los Angeles Rams QB Jared Goff.
A report from The Athletic shows that the Rams are starting to engage in some “exploratory trade talks,” according to Jourdan Rodrigue, with the ultimate goal to bring Stafford back to LA to run Sean McVay’s offense. With a high cap number after signing a new contract within the last couple of years and an apparent regression, it seems that the Goff experience in LA might be coming to an end.
That means if the Rams deem a quarterback worth trading for and are able to execute such a transaction, they would be willing to eat $22.2 million in dead-cap money, plus the new quarterback’s salary. They also could trade Goff after June 1 (an extremely rare scenario, though there is league precedent) for a relatively small total of $6.8 million in dead money in 2021 (plus $15.4 million in 2022).
So, like we said up top, Jared Goff’s name has now entered the chat of quarterbacks who are likely to be on the move this offseason. However, does that mean that Washington should be interested? It’s clear that they need a new guy under center going forward, but is Goff the guy?
Ask that question two years ago, and the answer is definitely yes. Ask that question now, and you’ll likely get a response that ranges from slightly-timid to aggressively against. What happened?
Well, a young player with a high ceiling was seemingly exposed by the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl a couple of years back, where he was held to 229 yards and 1 INT, being held out of the endzone in a 13-3 snoozer. Since then, things have fallen off a bit for Goff, and we can’t really figure out why. Check out these stats from Goff in both 2017 and 2018, compared to what he’s done in 2019 and 2020:
2017-2018: 24-7 record, 8492 yards, 60 TD, 65.3% completion, 19 INT
2019-2020: 18-13 record, 8590 yards, 42 TD, 64.95% completion, 29 INT
With a high-flying offense like the Rams have, Goff is apparently not the guy that McVay envisions running it going forward, but that doesn’t mean he can’t still have a solid career in the NFL. If Washington were to be interested, it would cost them significantly less to acquire Goff than someone like Stafford or Watson, simply because they’d more being doing LA a favor by getting him off their books. However, a Goff acquisition would likely not sit over very well with the fanbase in D.C., as he lacks a star factor that is so desired to head up this offense.
Goff feels more like a last-resort acquisition, mainly because of his regression, and that frighteningly big contract that he brings with him. At this point, though, it feels that his name has to at least be mentioned.
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