Washington Football Team: Exploring every potential quarterback trade target

QB Jared Goff, Rams

Jared Goff isn’t likely to excite anybody that much. That said, this is a list of all potential starting-caliber quarterbacks that could be on the move this offseason. Goff qualifies as one.

Goff is coming off a decent year that saw him complete a career-high 67 percent of his passes while continuing to effectively manage the Rams offense. He showed some grit playing through a broken thumb in the playoffs and while he did, on occasion, hold the Rams back during the season, he is still a far cry from the utterly pitiful player we saw on the field during his rookie season of 2016.

Many are probably asking, is Goff actually available? Well, according to NFL.com’s Steve Wyche, Goff and head coach Sean McVay may need “marriage counseling” after this season because their relationship is “not great”.

"We know John Wolford came in and they were excited about him when Jared Goff got hurt and the way he performed, and then he got hurt. So I think a lot of people are wondering if they’re going to bring in a veteran type of quarterback to push Jared Goff this offseason. Or at least have that threat there as a backup to see if they can elevate Goff. The people I’ve spoken to said basically at this moment the relationship with Goff and McVay: not great. They need marriage counseling is what one person said to me. I think this is something that they’re going to be able to work through, but there’s got to be some healing and that’s not just with Jared Goff’s injured thumb."

It’s easy to understand why this is the case. McVay has essentially crafted Goff into a competent NFL passer, but Goff hasn’t been able to win anything big. Despite the Rams’ elite defense, the team lost to the Patriots in the Super Bowl a couple of years ago, and this season, they weren’t able to advance past the divisional round because of their lacking offense. Some of that can be blamed on Goff’s injury, but McVay may be taking a look at this team and trying to figure out if there’s a way to upgrade the quarterback spot.

If McVay does want to move Goff, it will be hard to do. He has more than a $30 million cap hit in each of the next two seasons and while there’s an out in his contract after 2021, few teams, if any, will want to risk bringing him on board and seeing what he can do without McVay. Because as a rookie, the answer to that question was nothing.

The Rams may not want to move on from Goff anyway; they may just be looking for a way to push him. Nonetheless, even if the probability of him moving is slim-to-none, Goff belongs on this list — if only because his relationship with McVay appears to be on the rocks.

This is one player that Washington should steer clear from if he ends up on the trading block. There’s no reason to target a merely-decent starter at that price, especially without the weapons around him that he enjoyed utilizing in Los Angeles.