As much as I, you, and the rest of New England loves Cam Newton, there is no doubt that the Patriots are in quarterback purgatory. This is a realm in which many teams have found themselves stranded for years, sometimes decades at a time. Thursday night, the Patriots face an opponent whose quarterback model is one the Patriots should follow.
But Jared Goff sucks! It’s all Sean McVay!
No one is arguing that the Rams’ success has more to do with McVay than it does Jared Goff. No one is even saying Goff is some amazing quarterback. Goff being “average” is kind of the point here--the quarterbacks who are colloquially referred to as “average” are actually above average at the position they play due to the scarcity of talent. Alex Smith, Jimmy Garoppolo, Jared Goff, Baker Mayfield, Derek Carr, etc. None of them are Patrick Mahomes or Aaron Rodgers, but they are still capable of being built around.
By now it’s widely accepted that the crown jewel of roster building in the NFL is to have a quarterback on a cheap, rookie deal, thus giving a team the financial flexibility to extend their stars and sign free agents to surround their centerpiece quarterback. This has been the case since the rookie wage scale came to be ten years ago. After a big money extension that takes up more cap space, teams have leaned on developing draft picks and signing cheap free agents to fill holes around that star.
This argument hinges on a premise that has more to do with the upcoming second act of Goff’s career than his career up until now:
The contract extension the Rams gave Goff last September was good.
Why? Because extending Goff by four years at a price tag of $134 million total or $33.5 million avg./year wasn’t a massive deal by any means. People see a large figure like that attached to a quarterback like Goff and the kneejerk, negative reaction is understandable. At the time the extension was signed, it would have made Goff the 4th-highest paid quarterback in the NFL, but it hasn’t even kicked in yet and won’t until next season. The Mahomes and Deshaun Watson contracts were on the way. The Dak Prescott contract is still on the way, and the Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, and Baker Mayfield contracts aren’t far behind it. The Rams locked up the quarterback they went 11-5 and 13-3 with over the previous two seasons and who took them to a Super Bowl for what won’t even be a top ten quarterback contract by the time the deal’s second year hits.
This is not the Joe Flacco contract. It’s not going to cripple the Rams financially when the large cap hits start to kick in. The Rams have also drafted extremely well despite not having a first-round pick since 2016--they seem to cycle in mid-to-late round picks across the offensive line, linebacker spots, and in the defensive backfield like it's nothing. Extending Goff at that price was a smart move for a smart organization that drafts, develops, and coaches well.
The second facet of this is organizational. Last summer, then-Falcons GM Thomas Dimitroff told The Ringer’s Robert Mays the following: “It’s so damn hard to locate the right quarterback for your system ... and if you finally do, and your QB is thriving through those years, and all of a sudden you flip that and the next year you’re searching for someone that’s not that easy to find, I think you’re perceived as being a horse’s ass. That’s the reality.”
Moving from what you know to what you don’t know is a scary prospect for a general manager in the NFL. Botch that maneuver and the GM is most likely fired, and most likely is never a GM again. (Why do you think not a single team has tried that in the rookie wage scale era?) Les Snead picked Goff first overall, and alongside McVay, Goff has been good enough to get the Rams to the Super Bowl. So they worked out a realistic extension with a quarterback who clearly will never be considered top ten at his position, but who has a Vulcan mind meld with his play-caller.
So how does this apply to the Patriots? They certainly won’t have the first overall pick, and probably won’t even be in play to get one of the top quarterbacks this year. But there are going to be options out there who are at least Goff. Including one on their own roster.
In limited action, Jarrett Stidham has shown enough of a flash to earn a chance. I may be getting ahead of myself by quite a few years, but my crystal ball shows the Patriots continuing to draft well and taking advantage of the fact that they have the fourth-most cap space going into 2021 to surround a quarterback like Jarrett Stidham with a supporting cast. Oh yeah, and taking advantage of having the strongest system in the league that can handle developing players and street free agents on the fly.
When this pipedream inevitably succeeds, the Patriots should be the first team to follow the Rams down the path of going with the good enough quarterback instead of going back into the unknown, but not harming the future of the franchise for years to come.
@AndersenJA
P.S. -- THE NEXT QB IS NEVER GOING NOT GOING TO BE TOM BRADY. TOM BRADY IS NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN AGAIN.