Jared Goff’s offseason work pays off with improved mobility
Los Angeles Rams quarterback Jared Goff’s increased mobility outside the pocket has led to an ability to create more explosive plays with his feet and his arm down the field, adding another dimension to head coach Sean McVay’s already explosive offense.
But as Goff tells it, he’s had the sweet feet to make defenders miss all along, and just needed more reps to hone those skills a little more as an NFL quarterback.
“I just try and play my game,” Goff said. “I don’t think I worry about trying to expand anything. I’ve done a good job on the move up until this point. My game is a drop back passer. That’s what I’ve been all my life.
“I know I’ve been on the move quite a bit early on. But I think it’s just trying to be good at stuff I’m not good at. Early on in my career I wasn’t good at it, and I worked on it this offseason and many previous offseasons to get better at it.”
Through two games, Goff has already run 11 times for 28 yards -- including some zone read option plays -- and a successful, quarterback sneak on fourth-and-1 from his team’s 29-yard line to keep a drive alive that eventually led to a Samuel Sloman 30-yard field goal.
Goff finished with 40 total rushing yards for the entire 2019 season.
Along with the added running for Goff, McVay’s offense has featured a steady diet of play-action passes and roll out passes to keep defenses off balance.
“He played really well,” McVay said about Goff. “He was outstanding. I thought he had great command of what was going on and recognized the different looks. [The Eagles] are a challenging defense with a lot of different things they can present. He got into a rhythm, and guys made plays. It starts with him and he did an outstanding job today.”
Goff was pretty good throwing it as well, completing 13 straight passes to start the game.
“I didn’t know how many I had but I knew I hadn’t thrown an incompletion yet,” Goff said about the fast start. “We were rolling on offense and again, I’ve said it before, any time we are able to run the ball like we were today it opens up everything that we want. Today was no different.”
Goff finished 20-of-27 for 267 passing yards, with three touchdown passes and no touchdowns. Goff was sacked once and posted a 142.1 passer rating.
Goff’s impressive performance helped the Rams defeat the Philadelphia Eagles 37-19 -- the first win for the Rams in Philadelphia since 2001.
“Jared’s been looking good,” Rams receiver Robert Woods said. “He looked poised and made the right decisions all day today, whether he was throwing it or sometimes pulling down and using his legs. And really just being poise and being our leader.”
