Former Rams defender Jared Goff comments on trade with Lions

Conflicting emotions hit quarterback Jared Goff as a total blitz from all angles – sadness, confusion, frustration, hope, elation and gratitude – and his head is still spinning, a few days after the Rams negotiated him with the Detroit Lions.

The business that ended its period in Los Angeles surprised Goff, and the reality is just beginning to form.

“At the end of the day, they wanted to go in a different direction,” Goff, part of a blockbuster quarterback switch that sent Matthew Stafford to the Rams, said Tuesday. “As a defender, as the guy who is probably in the most important position on the field, if you are in a place that is not wanted and they want to leave you, the feeling is mutual.

“You don’t want to be in the wrong place. It became increasingly clear that this was the case. [The trade] it is something that I hope will be very good for my career ”.

In a half-hour telephone interview with The Times, Goff said he learned of the switch immediately after Saturday night, two weeks after the Rams were eliminated from the NFL playoffs in the divisional round by the Green Bay Packers.

It was an abrupt end to first choice in the 2016 draft, which twice made the Pro Bowl, and two years earlier helped Rams in his first Super Bowl in 17 years.

“I really enjoyed my time here,” said Goff, 26, “I want to leave this on a positive note. Obviously, the ending was not favorable and it was not fun. But they recruited me for first place overall and brought me to a city that didn’t have a football team for a long time, being part of that reconstruction after 2016, being able to help bring Los Angeles football back to prominence , all these things I am very proud of it. It is something I will always remember. “

Between 2005 and 2016, Rams failed to make the playoffs. In four years with Goff as a starter, they reached the wild card round, Super Bowl and divisional round.

The Rams declined to comment on this story, because they are prohibited from doing so until the negotiation becomes official in March, at the start of the new league year. The Lions sent Stafford in exchange for Goff, one choice from the third round this year and two from the first round in the next two years.

Goff, who before the 2019 season signed an extension that included a record $ 110 million in guarantees, is unsure when the tide turned against him.

“That’s the hard part now is trying to figure it out, when did it happen?” he said. “These are all the conversations I may or may not have, and I try to find out. That’s the conversation to have. “

Asked if it is strange that he has not yet spoken to the Rams, he said, “A little, yes.”

This season, Goff passed one of 20 touchdowns, the lowest since his debut year, with 13 interceptions. He also fumbled seven times, losing four.

After a Nov. 29 defeat to the San Francisco 49ers, in which Goff had two interceptions and a disaster, Rams coach Sean McVay abandoned his familiar self-blame and called Goff publicly for the first time, saying the defender needed to take more care of football.

In the final stretch, tension increased when Goff missed several opportunities in the loss to the New York Jets, who did not win.

But a crucial moment came after he broke his thumb on the hand he was playing in the penultimate game in Seattle. Although Goff grated in pain and ended the game, he underwent thumb surgery the next day.

“The next day, my thumb was swollen to the point where I couldn’t move it,” said Goff. “It was the biggest you could imagine. Huge. I expected the swelling to subside this week or have surgery, a week to go and move on. This was clearly the best way to do this. “

In the final against the Arizona Cardinals, reserve John Wolford, playing his first game in the NFL, helped Rams win and reach the playoffs.

On his way to the post-season opening in Seattle, Goff was still recovering from surgery, but he felt he was ready to play. McVay chose to start Wolford and relegated Goff to reserve. But Wolford suffered a neck injury in the first quarter, and Goff got off the bench, went through a touchdown and led Rams to victory.

With Wolford discarded, Goff started the divisional game at Green Bay and, despite a thumb still healing, passed for a touchdown and made no serious mistakes.

After the game, McVay was asked if Goff was his quarterback. The coach qualified his response by saying that Goff was the “now” quarterback. At a news conference the next day, McVay said there would be competition in all positions, including the quarterback.

Two days later, general manager Les Snead echoed McVay, saying that Goff was the defender “right now”. Five days later, the Rams negotiated with Goff.

“Regardless of how it ended, Sean and I had a great relationship and did so many good things together,” said Goff. “I won a lot of great games. He won several playoff games. It won two divisions together. Having so much success in the attack, so many good moments and memories.

“Unfortunately, it ended bitterly, but it still doesn’t diminish all those times we had.”

Goff still has lingering questions.

“When you hear it for the first time, it is difficult, it is disappointing,” he said. “But you are so excited that you get a new start. You get somewhere you believe. That was clearly no longer the case here, and when it happened, I don’t know.

“Some conversations are still missing. This will shed some light, obviously, and I will be able to understand things a little more. But at the moment given today, I want my message to thank the city of LA and the Kroenke family [who owns the team], and the Rams organization for the time I spent with them.

“The way it ended is disappointing and regrettable, but there were so many good moments and so many great victories, so many great memories in practice, in the locker room, at meetings. These things will last forever. “

The son of a firefighter, Goff was involved in California Strong, a movement that helps families who have lost their homes in recent years due to forest fires. Last spring, Goff donated $ 250,000 to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank – along with an equivalent donation from Rams’ teammate Andrew Whitworth – on learning that the coronavirus outbreak would affect students dependent on free lunches. He was working with the Inglewood School District on initiatives involving primary schools, including providing funds for a refurbished library at Warren Lane Elementary, a project that is underway.

“LA has become my home,” said Goff, a Bay Area native. “It is a place where I put my roots on the earth. Being able to affect the community in Inglewood for the past two years was the most rewarding thing I have ever done in my life.

“One thing I said to them this year was, ‘this is not a one-year thing. This is not just now. This is not a public relations movement. I will be here for a long time, and I will be with you a long time. ‘

“Unfortunately, obviously, things changed quickly. But that does not mean that I am leaving them, or I am no longer involved with their community or helping these children out of difficult situations and raising them. This will continue. “

Goff said he was “extremely disappointed and upset” to learn of the trade, but his mood improved 30 minutes after speaking with the Lions, whose new general manager, Brad Holmes, was the scouting director of the college for the Rams, and whose new offensive the coordinator is former Chargers coach Anthony Lynn.

Speaking to the Lions, Goff said, “That’s what made me think, ‘oh my God, this is how it should be. It makes me feel great, ‘how excited they were, how excited they were.’

He added: “Over time in the past few days, and even at the end of that night, it becomes positive and you start to feel great about yourself again. You start feeling, I don’t mean that relief is the right word, but you start to feel happy, grateful, ready for a new opportunity. That is the biggest feeling that overcame me that night, and even in the days that followed.

“Of course, you come and go, and your emotions go everywhere. But for the most part it has been that feeling of gratitude for what I was able to do here and conquer in Los Angeles and, at the same time, enthusiasm for the city I’m coming from, the city that I will bring a lot of passion and, I hope, success for A long time.

“I’m not going to sit here and beat my own drum, but I’m very proud to be able to be resilient, to have that as part of my makeup. We had a lot of fun here, and then there were times when I had to dig deep, be a man about it and handle things the right way. I think I did that. “

The Times staff writer Gary Klein contributed to this story.