Sophomore Season Expectations- Jared Goff vs Paxton Lynch
Each year there are a hand full of NFL rookies who do are garnered as top prospects and yet seem to fail to live up to their hype in their rookie campaigns. In the 2016 season, some of the players who exceeded expectations include Cowboys RB Ezekiel Elliott and QB Dak Prescott, Bears RB Jordan Howard and Falcons S Keanu Neal and LB Deion Jones; but two rookies who were unable to have success rookie seasons were Rams QB Jared Goff and Broncos QB Paxton Lynch.
Entering the 2016 NFL Draft, Goff (#1 overall) and Lynch (#26 overall) had alot of promise and were seen as the future of their franchises and hopefully championship caliber QBs. Unlike QBs in past drafts like Andrew Luck and Jameis Winston, both Goff and Lynch were not expected to start week 1 and were in fact developmental QBs. That being said, both QBs were drafted by QB hungry teams and the only way they wouldn’t see the field is if they weren’t ready. Los Angeles had Case Keenum as their starting QB while Denver was toying with the idea of Mark Sanchez as their starter but eventually gave the job to Trevor Siemian. It was apparent that neither QB would see the field in 2016 but after the trade of QB Sam Bradford and promotion of Carson Wentz in Philadelphia, that assumption went out the door.
Throughout the first half of the 2016 season, both Los Angeles and Denver had to battle with the idea of starting their rookie QBs but after subpar performances from Siemian and Keenum, both Goff and Lynch got their chance to start. Lynch started week 4 vs Tampa Bay while Goff’s debut wasn’t until week 10 vs Miami and while their debuts were less than great, both rookies had their positive moments. Lynch ended up starting 3 games for the Broncos while Goff started 7 games for the Rams in a year where both teams struggled on the offensive side of the ball.
So what about Jared Goff and Paxton Lynch this season? Well, the Rams felt it was important to get help for Goff so they hired a new, young head coach in Sean McVay as well as upgrade the offense by signing WR Robert Woods along with drafting WR Cooper Kupp and TE Gerald Everett. These type of additions signal to me that Los Angeles believes in Goff and will try to help him as much as possible heading into his second season. Denver on the other hand decided to hire a defensive minded head coach in Vance Joseph and the offense is relatively similar from last season with the exception of signing RB Jamaal Charles.
Heading into their sophomore seasons, I expect improvements from both Goff and Lynch but for some reason believe Lynch will have the bigger leap from his rookie year to now. Denver seems to have a solid core of WRs led by Demaryius Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders and the addition of Jamaal Charles could prove to be a versatile option at RB. Lynch might also have another huge target in TE Jake Butt along with an offensive line that should improve thanks to additions of G Ronald Leary and first round pick T Garret Bolles. Not to mention Lynch has one of the best mentors in Hall of Fame QB John Elway who obviously saw something in the former Memphis standout after drafting him in the first round last year.
With less than two weeks until preseason there will be a lot of attention on Lynch, Goff and other sophomores looking to make similar improvements; but as of right now the arrow for both Jared Goff and Paxton Lynch are pointing up and it will be interesting to see if it remains that way throughout the 2017 NFL season.