Jared Goff Fantasy News and Statistics

The Los Angeles Rams decided they needed a splash to announce their return to the City of Angels in 2016. LA gave up two first-round picks, two second-round picks and a third-round pick in the 2016 and 2017 NFL Drafts in order to grab the No. 1 overall pick in 2016. Although he wasn’t seen as the best player available, the Rams rolled the dice with a local California boy in Jared Goff.

Goff piled on the stats in Sonny Dykes’ Bear Raid offense. He was the first true freshman to start a season opener in Cal history and acquitted himself very well given his youth. Goff threw for over 3,500 yards on a bad Golden Bears team that finished the season 1-11.

His best season came in 2014 when he received national recognition after torching Colorado and Washington State in back-to-back weeks. Goff threw for 985 yards and 12 touchdowns in those two games, leading the Golden Bears to a 59-56 win against Colorado and a 60-59 victory over Washington State. Neither of those defenses were great by any stretch of the imagination, but those gaudy numbers led to Goff entering his junior season as one of the highest-rated quarterbacks in college football.

Goff’s junior campaign started off with a bang. He led the Golden Bears to a 5-0 record and a No. 23 ranking before everything went awry. In a highly anticipated game against Utah’s talented secondary, he threw five interceptions in a close loss. He struggled in Cal’s next three games, too, as the Bears dropped four in a row. However, he turned it on again at the end of the season with 19 touchdown passes against just one interception over the last four games and an Armed Forces Bowl win over Air Force.

You can’t win it all without a quarterback in this day and age. Few considered Goff worthy of the No. 1 overall pick, but the Rams viewed him as the best quarterback available in the 2016 NFL Draft. Unfortunately, LA gave up so much to get him that he didn’t have much to work with in his rookie season.

When Goff arrived to his first training camp, it soon became clear that he had a lot to learn. Reports trickled out that he was a major work in progress, and it was quickly announced that Case Keenum would be the starter for the season opener.

In his rookie season, Goff didn’t see the field until mid-November. At that point, the Rams season was a wash, and the team decided to find out what they had in the young passer. The results weren’t encouraging, as the Rams went 0-7 in his seven starts. Goff threw more interceptions than touchdowns and passed for more than 200 yards just twice. It was a brutal start to his NFL career, made tougher by the success of fellow rookies Dak Prescott and Carson Wentz.

The goal for Goff in 2017 is improvement. It won’t be hard given how poorly he performed in 2016, and the team went out and acquired some help for him with the additions of Sammy Watkins, Robert Woods and Cooper Kupp. The Rams are going to be bad again this season, but if Goff can start to look like a No. 1 pick, the team has hope for 2018.