Every Saturday night during the 2018 NFL season, former Los Angeles Rams quarterback coach Zac Taylor and the Rams coaching staff called for a vote.
Head coach Sean McVay or Taylor would ask starting quarterback Jared Goff and backups Brandon Allen and Sean Mannion about which plays they were most comfortable with in specific situations.
One of the coaches would ask, “What are our best three plays on third-and-short?” And then McVay, Taylor, Goff, Allen and Mannion would all give their answers.
Goff’s answer was viewed as the tiebreaker, but these votes usually resulted in a runaway winner.
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“It was always funny, usually our answers would all align, and not on purpose,” Mannion said. “We just spent so much time with one another helping each other prepare. It’s funny how we’d all agree by the end of the week. That’s the sign of a good quarterback room.”
The style of that 2018 Rams quarterback room has spread across the NFL over the last three seasons. After the Rams reached the Super Bowl, Taylor became the head coach of the Cincinnati Bengals. Goff was traded to the Detroit Lions, and he’ll match up against his former coach when the Bengals face the Lions on Sunday.
The 2018 season was a formative year for Taylor, who at the time was on the verge of becoming an NFL head coach. Without the success of the Rams offense, a product of Taylor’s relationship with Goff, Taylor’s coaching career might have gone differently.
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“What I always appreciated about Jared is he’s a very clear communicator,” Taylor said. "If he needs more information or has a feeling on something, that’s important in a relationship between a quarterback coach and a quarterback and a head coach."
Taylor’s philosophy was encouraging the quarterbacks to ask difficult questions and then spending the next day-or-two watching enough film to get them the answer. When Goff asked Taylor a question about the game plan or the offense, Taylor's response would be one of his biggest priorities for the week.
Taylor also brought his own spin to the quarterback room after he was promoted from assistant wide receivers coach following the 2017 season. As a part of the quarterbacks’ game-week routine, Taylor provided in-depth research on the head referee for the Rams’ upcoming game.
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According to Mannion, Taylor always spoke highly of referee Clete Blakeman. Just like Taylor, Blakeman had been a quarterback at Nebraska, and Taylor provided a complete breakdown of Blakeman’s career. Three years later, Mannion still remembers how Taylor explained that referee Craig Wrolstad was from Seattle, Washington.
Taylor wanted the quarterbacks to be as prepared as possible, and this was a part of the process.
“We felt as quarterbacks that we went into every game totally prepared, and that's really a credit to Zac,” Mannion said. “All you want as a quarterback is that you have total control of our game plan. That was the feeling I knew we all had going into every game.”
When Taylor became the Bengals head coach in 2019, he didn’t carry over the tradition of the pre-game quarterback votes. He did bring some of the Rams’ offense’s concepts.
The Bengals offense has some similar reliance on pre-snap motions and shifts. Both offenses have longer play calls, two options on most plays and more flexibility for wide receivers in their routes.
The big differences are based on the quarterback. Goff was a standout play action passer, and he was better when he had a scheduled set of reads. Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow is a better drop back passer, better outside the pocket and better making reads at the line of scrimmage.
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When Allen signed with the Bengals in 2020, he said he still immediately saw similarities between the Bengals offense and what the Rams used with Goff.
“A lot of times, guys aren’t used to this style of offense,” Allen said. “They’re used to being told to run a go route and then running a go route. Every position in this offense is stressed more. Guys probably weren’t used to having that much asked of them in terms of different route concepts and different terminology. Just the amount of mental prep to get this offense rolling.”
As Taylor installed a revamped offense around Burrow in 2020, Taylor often showed Burrow and the wide receivers clips of Goff running the Rams offense in 2018. Taylor was looking to teach the type of detail that’s required in his offense, so he showed the team the group that did it best.
Taylor believes it’s easier for players to understand a play by seeing it live rather than seeing it on paper. Before Taylor had clips of Burrow to show the offense, Goff was one of the prototypes.
“I thought Jared operated that system really well and had a good feel for it,” Taylor said. “He threw on rhythm. He knew how to handle the run checks. He played on time. As we tried to get things going, they saw a lot of Jared Goff tape, and obviously he got them to the Super Bowl, so he did a lot of great things there.”
In Detroit, Goff is averaging 260 passing yards per game and completing 67% of his passes. And in Cincinnati, Burrow has made the second-year leap. Aside from Burrow, there might not be a player who has impacted Taylor’s coaching career more than Goff.
“Every quarterback is a little bit different,” Taylor said. “You get a chance to learn through them.”
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