Los Angeles Rams: Three bold predictions for Jared Goff in 2019

The Los Angeles Rams’ young quarterback, Jared Goff, is entering the most important season of his career thus far in 2019.

Jared Goff still may be relatively new to the league but he is already entering perhaps the most important season of his career with the Los Angeles Rams, well, the next two years that is.

Goff is entering the fourth year of his career, and while he already earned the $22 million option for his fifth year, the next two seasons are going to determine how much he gets paid once he becomes a free agent.

It will determine whether or not he stays long-term with the Los Angeles Rams and we will find out just how much the Rams value his services.

Terrible play over the next two years could completely derail any chance of him getting the kind of contract he wants. Building on his past and getting even better can ensure that he gets the kind of payday that an elite quarterback gets.

It all starts with the 2019 season and here we have three bold predictions for Goff in his fourth year with the Los Angeles Rams.

1. He continues the trend and passes for 4,500 yards and 30 touchdowns

Last season, Goff was one of the NFL’s leading passers with 4,688 passing yards and 32 touchdowns. This coming after a year in which Goff took a huge step forward and passed for 3,804 yards and 28 touchdowns.

Goff will not experience the same kind of jump and pass for over 5,000 yards and 35 touchdowns and probably won’t see much of a jump at all. I think we saw what Goff is capable of in his third season and the kind of level he can perform to.

Goff’s 2019 will be very similar to his 2018 in the fact that he will once again eclipse 4,500 passing yards, but likely not surpass his 2018 totals, and pass for around the same touchdowns with at least 30.

2. His interception rate will go up

We cannot be all positive as that would be unfair to the readers; we have to be as middle of the road and honest as possible. It might not be want to want to hear, and you might disagree, but chances are that Goff will see an uptick in interceptions in his fourth season.

The main reason here being the likely stepback in the running game. Todd Gurley has lingering knee problems and the Los Angeles Rams were notably worse offensively without a great running game.

The team excelled with the run game as the motor of the offense as it opened the passing game up as well. The Rams were the best play-action team in football last year, which led to a lot of Goff’s success.

Goff won’t have as thick of a security blanket and defenses are going to play more to the passing game and pressure Goff. With an offensive line that has arguably taken a step back, this will naturally lead to more interceptions. I would expect 15-18.

3. He posts career-highs in rushing

Jared Goff is not immobile like some of his veteran quarterback counterparts but he certainly is not known for being a running threat. Goff has just 175 total rushing yards in his career with 108 of those yards coming last season.

He can still move though and we saw signs of Goff’s elusiveness in the NFC Championship Game when the offense had to kick into gear and come back from a deficit to the New Orleans Saints.

Because of the added pressure, we are going to see a lot more of Goff rolling out of the pocket and evading tacklers to pick up first downs. He has the athleticism to do it and the potential regression in the running game will correlate to an improvement in Goff’s.

He still won’t be a Russell Wilson but he will show teams to respect his mobility. As a result, the Los Angeles Rams’ offense will run smoother than it would otherwise.