As poorly as Jared Goff played in Week 12 against the San Francisco 49ers, Sean McVay never thought about pulling his quarterback. He didn’t consider it when Goff threw two interceptions and lost two fumbles against the Dolphins in Week 8, either.
The Rams lost both of those games, but they had a chance to win each time – even despite Goff’s inability to protect the football. For that reason, McVay stuck with Goff under center rather than benching him for backup John Wolford.
“If I thought it was going to be the best thing to just take a deep breath and step away, then I’d say, maybe. But not in either of those situations, because both of those reflected kind of having an opportunity where there was enough plays made to get back in it,” McVay told reporters Monday. “The Dolphins game, maybe a little bit different, but I thought it was important to be able to play through some of those things, learn from it, especially just based on some of the things that they were activating defensively.”
The Rams lost to the Dolphins by 11, and that was with L.A. shutting Miami out in the second half. They trailed by 18 points at halftime, but McVay didn’t feel his team was completely out of it. He didn’t feel that way against the 49ers on Sunday, either.
Even with all those costly turnovers, the Rams had a chance to win the game in the final minutes, only to have their last drive stall and end in a punt. Aaron Donald and Cam Akers helped give the Rams a chance by making two game-changing plays, but the offense sputtered down the stretch.
“Yesterday, each of those situations that occurred that ended up hurting us, were kind of different in their own right,” he explained. “All of them happened to be versus a man-coverage type of situation, the three turnovers that he had. Really for us, we got back in that game where we had a good little bit of momentum on that drive, that you get the big play to Cooper (Kupp), then you end up hitting Josh Reynolds and then we just kind of missed hitting a touchdown to Darrell Henderson, which ended up getting it to 17-6. Then Aaron does an unbelievable job of forcing the fumble and then the next thing you know, the next drive you get, that’s where you see Cam break a 61-yarder and he has a tough, hard red-zone run that two plays later, you punch it in and then you’re looking up and you’re winning the game. Yesterday that was never part of the consideration nor was it really for Miami, to answer your question.”
Wolford has never taken a regular-season snap in the NFL. He’s barely played in the preseason, either, being a second-year player after going undrafted out of Wake Forest. He has potential, but there’s no reason to believe he would’ve been better suited to lift the Rams to victory against the 49ers than Goff was.
Goff’s play has certainly been frustrating in recent weeks, with 10 turnovers in his last four games, but McVay knows he’s capable of playing better and will give him the chance to do just that – even in the toughest of circumstances.
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