Sean McVay 'Really Happy' Jared Goff Excelling
The fallout between Jared Goff and Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay has been well-documented.
As a result of the soured relationship, the Rams decided to move on from the former No. 1 overall pick, sending multiple first-round draft picks and Goff to Detroit, in exchange for Matthew Stafford.
Last season, Goff found his groove playing in Ben Johnson's offense. While it was no easy feat, the duo put in the work prior to the start of the season, spending countless hours watching old film of Rams games.
The goal was to craft an offense that would highlight the strengths of the ex-Rams quarterback.
The result was a player recapturing aspects of his game that made him successful, including limiting turnovers, making key throws and involving many members of the offense.
McVay was asked this week about the 28-year-playing at a high level for the Lions.
“I think Jared’s played at a really high level. I’ll tell you what, though, when you watch what he did last year, he played great. And, I think because he’s so conscientious, repetition is the mother of learning. The more you play, the more you learn. You can really see he’s able to get through progressions quickly. They were asking a lot of him. He got a lot of different guys involved, took great care of the football, and so I think he’s only gotten better," McVay said. "He played really good football here for us, really grateful for those things. But, I was really impressed with just the way that he led and the way that he ended up demonstrating a lot of the things that we want to embody, that mental toughness.
"I think he was like 29-7 in terms of touchdowns, interceptions, one of the better ratios, and threw for a bunch of yards and they were one of the top offenses," McVay continued. "I was really happy to see how well he did. I think that’s probably a fair assessment, because he’s only getting better.”
Dan Campbell understood it was imperative to quickly develop a relationship with Goff when he first arrived in Detroit.
“You’re going to want to have a strong relationship,” Campbell told reporters, prior to the start of minicamp practice. “Certainly, the quarterback, head coach, have to be tied to one another. You want to get off on the right foot. You want to make sure there’s a trust there, there’s a bond. It has to be earned. You can’t just say it. It is going to take time, and I think here we are in Year 3 and I very much believe he trusts me. He trusts what we are doing and I trust him. And, that’s a big part of it.”
Goff and his new head coach are in constant communication, even regularly checking in to talk about different football scenarios.
The relationship has allowed Detroit's current signal-caller to gain a level of understanding of how to approach a variety of different scenarios that could come up.
“Constantly communicates,” Goff said. “Tells me ‘good job’ when I do a good job. Tells me ‘fix that’ when I need to fix that and is just coaching me, is doing a hell of a job communicating. And, we talk situations quite a bit of -- I ask him questions of how he would handle X, Y and Z that we have had here at OTAs and just getting ideas and talking ball. And, I think when I get to hear what his view on stuff is, it helps me know how to approach that situation, if it were to come.”
