All Ball: Jared Goff, How do you like me now? And what about Bronny
by Paul Teetor
Remember Jared Goff?
Remember the Rams quarterback who took them to a Super Bowl in 2018 – but only produced a measly 3 points in the biggest game of his life, a 12-3 loss to the New England Patriots that could have been a historic win if only Goff had played like champ instead of a chump?
Remember the guy Coach Sean McVay soon thereafter very publicly soured on and shipped off to Detroit for Matthew Stafford, who then led the Rams to a Super Bowl win in his very first season?
At that point, the Goff for Stafford trade was considered a steal for the Rams while the Lions were stuck with Goff and his bloated contract.
Remember, he was considered a throw-in with a horrendous contract that the Lions were going to absorb as the price for all the high draft picks they were getting from the Rams?
He was the guy the LA sports media – including All Ball – blamed for all the Rams problems in not being able to win a Super Bowl — even though they had a great coach, a great defense headed by future Hall of Famer Aaron Donald and a great running back in Todd Gurley?
Well, that guy just signed a four-year $212 million contract extension this week – with a record-setting $73 million signing bonus — as a reward for taking the Lions to the verge of the Super Bowl last season. It was a playoff run that included a one-point win over the Rams in the first round.
The extension has an average annual value of $53 million, making Goff the second highest paid player in the NFL, second only to Cincinnati quarterback Joe Burrow.
Goff is so wealthy now that he recently shelled out $9 million for his third beach city house, the one right next to his current Manhattan Beach residence. And of course, he still has an ocean-view Hermosa Beach Mega mansion that he bought for $8 million a few years ago, not long after he signed a $134 million extension with the Rams.
The 29-year-old Goff is certainly living large these days, with a swimsuit model girlfriend, a growing collection of beach city residences and new-found recognition around the NFL as a championship caliber quarterback.
His newest Manhattan Beach property is a 3,500-square foot, L-shaped structure on a 10,000 square foot lot – large by beach city standards – and featuring four bedrooms and four baths scattered across two full floors of living space. The architecturally vague house also features an attached two-car garage and a semi-detached accessory structure with an additional two car garage and upstairs guest quarters.
The circa 1970s house has bleak, towering walls and a beige stucco exterior that makes it a prime candidate for a tear-down and complete rebuild. Goff so far has given no indication what he intends to do with the property.
Goff’s primary residence is next door, a Mediterranean-style mansion that is extravagantly lavish in a way that has become common for Strand properties but slightly less so for homes further away from the beach. He paid $10.5 million for it a year ago and with the addition of the next-door house he now owns roughly a half-acre of prime Manhattan Beach dirt.
In addition to his growing Manhattan Beach compound, Goff also owns his Hermosa property. He and his fiancé, Christen Harper, also own an estate in Bloomfield Hills, a posh suburb of Detroit, which they use during the football season.
Detroit is where he turned his career around after nearly crashing and burning in LA.
Although the 6-foot-5 blond-headed Goff will always be the polite NorCal kid who starred at Cal Berkeley and was drafted first overall, he made it clear this week at the news conference announcing his massive extension that he takes a lot more pride in what he has accomplished over the last three years in Detroit than he ever did during his three years in the great expectations pressure cooker of LA.
“A lot more,” Goff said. “Doing it in a place like this, where the fans are so passionate and care so much, and how honored I am to be their quarterback and be their leader. And to play for coach Dan Campbell and play for offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, quarterback coach Mark Brunell, and all the other coaches, and play with these teammates, it is really special. It’s something I’ll remember forever.”
In some ways, the trajectories of his time in LA and his time in Detroit are similar. In LA, he went 0-7 in his rookie season under Coach Jeff Fisher before making the Super Bowl a year later. And in Detroit he went from LA castoff to having his name chanted at Ford field in the playoffs.
This year the Lions will be one of the teams favored to make it all the way to the Super Bowl – a goal Goff embraced.
“It’s a good chapter closing of the last three years, but now I’m more driven and more fired up than ever to go even harder and put the pedal to the metal even more to bring a Super Bowl to this city,” Goff said. “And that’s what’s most important.”
McVay and the other Ram coaches clearly lost faith in Goff after that Super Bowl loss, and that is something he will never forget. He has had much more support – and continuity – in Detroit. In Goff’s three seasons in Detroit — going on his fourth this year — he’s had the same head coach, the same offensive coordinator, and the same quarterbacks coach. When an offense is as hot as Detroit’s has been for the last two seasons, that continuity is nearly unheard of in the NFL because the assistants tend to get hired by other teams.
“It’s very rare, it really is,” Goff said. “Even having the same head coach, the OC and the quarterback coach, for me, for three years, that’s so rare. In L.A., it was every year we seemed to have a new quarterback coach. Here, we’ve had the same guy for three years.”
Goff grew up in California and after going to Cal and being drafted by Los Angeles, it seemed like his destiny was to remain a west coast guy for his entire professional career. But the trade changed all that, and now three years later he’s on top of the world.
“The reward, the contract, and the success we’ve been able to have has been awesome, but the journey itself these past three years has been the true success,” Goff said. “Obviously the wins and getting the contract are amazing. But being able to go through that together with my teammates and my family, and go through the dark times and grow through those times and learn more about yourself and work on yourself, that’s the win in all this. I’m happy to be able to stand in front of you and be your quarterback for a lot longer.”
LA’s loss has been Detroit’s gain, and that is an outcome that no one – certainly no one in LA, including All Ball – would ever have predicted when the trade was made.
Bronny James: soon to be a Laker
All the dominos are falling into place for the eminently unqualified Bronny James to be on the Lakers roster next season.
Domino number one: Bronny showed up at the NBA combine for draft hopefuls and didn’t totally embarrass himself. Sure, he only measured out at 6-foot-1 and he only averaged 4.4 points as a freshman at USC, but he has one special qualification that no other draft hopeful does: he’s LeBron’s kid and LeBron says he wants to play with his son.
What LeBron wants, LeBron usually gets.
Domino number two: His pops showed up at the Combine to cheer his boy on. TV cameras caught Lakers GM Rob Pelinka talking to LeBron while they watched the draft hopefuls in action. Perhaps they were talking about whether LeBron will exercise his $51.4 player option next season or decline it to become an unrestricted free agent, free to sign with any team in the NBA.
Domino number three: The Lakers have two picks in this draft, number 17 and number 55. Not even Pelinka would be so dumb as to waste the 17th pick on Bronny. But the 55th pick? That’s got Bronny’s name all over it.
Unless some other team – like the Clippers – takes Bronny first. Then LeBron has a big decision to make: does he leave the Lakers for the Clippers, where he would have the better chance to win a championship and play with his son?
The 2024 NBA Draft will be held June 26 on ABC and ESPN.
Stay tuned.
Contact: teetor.paul@gmail.com ER