Sean McVay defends Jared Goff over Rams’ offensive issues

Sean McVay and Jared Goff appeared to fall out at the end of their time together with the Los Angeles Rams, but McVay is still sticking up for his former quarterback.

McVay said Thursday it was unfair to blame the Rams’ offensive issues solely on Goff, and argued that as coach, he deserved much of the blame for what happened.

“I think the unfair narrative has been that some of our decrease in production is exclusively on the quarterback,” McVay said, via Myles Simmons of ProFootballTalk. “That’s not true at all. I think certainly, I have a big hand in that. I have to be able to look myself in the mirror and acknowledge and be able to evolve, improve, and take ownership in that.

“I’m not going to run away from the blame that’s deserved on my end. But what I do think is important that the narrative [that] becomes, ‘Oh, this is the outlet for why the offense wasn’t what it was’ — that’s unfair to Jared. And I think it’s disrespectful to what he’s done over the last four years.”

At least at one point, Goff showed he was capable of carrying a high-powered offense. He had back-to-back seasons with more than 4,500 passing yards in 2018 and 2019. The Rams’ run game got worse in recent years, and the offense became more conservative.

That said, there’s definitely evidence that McVay lost faith in Goff. That may be based on the quarterback’s decision-making, or the sense that McVay’s offense couldn’t be creative enough with Goff’s limitations. In the end, McVay certainly seemed eager to move on from Goff, so while the coach is right that it can’t all be on the quarterback, it’s clear that he feels a good portion of the issues were.