Perhaps the handwriting was on the wall. In recent days both head coach Sean McVay and general manager Les Snead were rather open and honest about the status of quarterback Jared Goff on their roster. McVay stated that there would be a “level of competition” to the quarterback position, and the general manager stated that Goff was a Ram “at the moment” before continuing on to state that “anything can be done” with respect to the salary cap.
But looking at both Goff and the newest member of the roster, it is quite clear what the Los Angeles Rams see in Matthew Stafford.
Decisiveness.
Hesitation and indecision has been a staple of Goff’s tenure with the Los Angeles Rams. You can take it back to the run-up to Super Bowl LIII, and the game itself. In this piece from that season I dove into great length about Goff’s hesitation, and that was a factor on the biggest play of the game, when Goff waited to throw a deep route to Brandin Cooks, allowing time for Jason McCourty to recover and break up what could have been a game-changing touchdown.
That hesitation continued into this season, and as this video breakdown highlights, the struggles against some specific coverages, where the middle-of-the-field is open, continued into this year:
https://youtu.be/JROSdDvgD3E
In fact, McVay challenged Goff prior to the Rams’ Week 13 game against the Arizona Cardinals, and the young QB responded in one of the team’s biggest wins of the season. But even in what was a bit of a redemptive performance, you still saw that hesitation:
Three throws from Jared Goff in a bit of a redemptive performance.
*Working progressions out of empty and staying on-time
*Crosser variations and throwing on the move
*Placement against tight coverage pic.twitter.com/rc9iBftAtw— Mark Schofield (@MarkSchofield) December 8, 2020
Even when he was playing well, the hesitation was there.
That leads us to Stafford.