There are a number of reasons why Jared Goff struggled in 2019. His offensive line was significantly worse than it was in 2018, Brandin Cooks missed time with concussions, Todd Gurley offered little help in the running game and Goff himself wasn’t nearly as accurate as he was in the two years prior.
It’s unfair to put all of the blame on Goff’s shoulders, but he shouldn’t be exempt from ridicule, either. He admitted he didn’t play as well as he should have last season and was part of the reason for his team’s downfall.
One area where he regressed significantly was on play-action passes. That came as a huge surprise, too, because of how good he was on those plays in 2017 and 2018. Goff was among the best quarterbacks on play-action passes in 2018, posting a passer rating above 100. In 2017, he led the NFL with 1,446 yards passing on play-action, 176 more than any other player.
According to Doug Farrar of Touchdown Wire, using numbers provided by Sports Info Solutions, Goff was the worst QB in the NFL on play-action.
Given the extent to which Sean McVay’s offense is based on play-action — no team had more play-action passing attempts than the Goff’s 202 — it’s quite disconcerting how ineffective he was with it. Goff had the league’s lowest play-action passer rating (82.9), completing 128 of those 202 attempts for 1,617 yards, just three touchdowns, and five interceptions. Play-action generally presents an open invitation to shot plays downfield, so when you add in the fact that Goff had just 675 air yards on all those attempts… well, it’s one more reason Goff’s enormous contract makes less and less sense.
Now, there are a lot of factors that go into play-action calls. The protection has to be good, allowing the quarterback to turn his back to the defense while faking the handoff to the running back. The Rams call most of their play-action when Goff is under center, too, so his fake to the running back is more exaggerated than it would be out of the shotgun.
Next, receivers have to run good routes. This seems obvious, but if a quarterback is turning his back to the defense, he expects his receivers to be in a certain spot when he flips his head back around to look downfield.
And finally, a good ground game is hugely beneficial for a play-action passing attack. If defenses know you can’t run the ball – or worse, that you’re not even going to try – they’re not going to bite on the play fake. The Rams neither ran the ball successfully nor very often last year, thus limiting the effectiveness of the play fake.
There weren’t any issues with routes from the Rams’ receivers last season, but the offensive line didn’t give him much time after play-action fakes. Far too often he was faced with defenders in the backfield, trying to elude them in order to get rid of the football.
Again, Goff deserves some of the blame, too, but he didn’t get much help from his friends up front.
If he’s going to rebound from a disappointing 2019 season, Goff must turn it around on play-action – especially considering it’s a staple of Sean McVay’s offensive scheme. That shouldn’t be terribly difficult, either, with the offensive line expected to improve and the running game becoming a focal point thanks to the arrival of Cam Akers and the departure of a hampered Gurley.
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