Case Keenum Unhappy With Benching
- Case Keenum, whom Goff is replacing as the Rams’ No. 1 signal-caller, is predictably displeased that he lost his place atop the team’s depth chart. On receiving the news, Keenum said Wednesday, “Honestly, I wasn’t happy. I want to play. That’s why I play football, to be the quarterback and the guy with the ball in his hands” (via Zac Jackson of Pro Football Talk). However, Keenum isn’t going to cause any behind-the-scenes problems for LA. “With that being said I trust Coach (Jeff) Fisher,” he continued. “I trust these coaches and their decision. I’m a captain and I have to do my job. My job is whatever they tell me my job is.”
Jeff Fisher: Isaiah Pead’s Career Over
Isaiah Pead‘s playing career is over as a result of the car crash he was involved in last week, Rams coach Jeff Fisher told reporters (via ESPN.com). Pead suffered major injuries and was said to be in critical condition in an Ohio hospital. 
[RELATED: Isaiah Pead Involved In Car Crash]
“Our organization’s hearts and prayers go out to the Isaiah Pead family,” Fisher said. “I spoke with his mom [on Saturday]. He’s struggling, and he’s going to have a tough road. We’re hoping that he’ll come through this, but his career is over, and he was an outstanding young man while we had him.”
Pead lost control of his car on Interstate 670, and the vehicle went through a guardrail and down an embankment. Police have determined that drugs and alcohol were not a factor in the crash.
The running back played for the Rams from 2012-2015 before joining the Dolphins in March. In October, Miami dropped him along with other notable veterans in an effort to get out of their early season slide.
Our thoughts and best wishes go out to Pead and his family during this difficult time.
Rams’ Robert Quinn Released From Hospital
Great news out of Los Angeles as Robert Quinn has been released from the hospital, according to NFL Network’s Steve Wyche. Today, Quinn is back at the Rams’ practice facility but there’s no word yet on when he might return to the gridiron. 
[RELATED: Rams To Start Jared Goff]
At this stage, we still don’t know much about what landed Quinn in the hospital. All that we know is that it was a non-football related illness and not related to the benign brain tumor he dealt with in high school. From the little that Jeff Fisher disclosed yesterday, however, it sounds like Quinn is not facing anything too serious. Now, we’ll have to wait to find out how it may impact him on the field. It seems unlikely that he will play this weekend against the Dolphins, but we won’t know for sure until the team shares more about the defensive end.
So far this year, Quinn has has two sacks, two forced fumbles, and two passes defensed in seven games. That’s not quite on the level with his best campaigns. In 2014, his last full season, he totaled 10.5 sacks and 46 tackles. In the year prior, he earned an All-Pro selection as he tallied an eye-popping 19 sacks and 57 tackles.
We here at PFR wish Quinn nothing but the best and look forward to seeing him back on the field, when he is ready.
Rams To Start Jared Goff
The future is now in Los Angeles. The Rams are starting Jared Goff on Sunday, according to Chris Mortensen of ESPN.com (on Twitter). The team informed Goff and previous starter Case Keenum in a meeting this morning. 
Over the weekend, it was reported that Keenum would likely be given the hook if he struggled against the Jets on Sunday. After the 9-6 victory, coach Jeff Fisher refused to blame Keenum for the unproductive offensive showing.
“I don’t believe it’s the quarterback play,” Fisher said. “I think it’s collectively. It’s always a possibility when [Goff’s] time comes. But I thought Case did a nice job.”
Keenum didn’t throw any interceptions against Gang Green, but he also didn’t throw any touchdowns. Even though Fisher did not hammer Keenum for his play, it appears that the team is not content with treading water at the QB position. Goff is green, but it’s not as though Keenum has been setting the world on fire with his play. The Rams will turn it over to the No. 1 overall pick with an eye on winning this season and evaluating their future.
Goff’s first test comes against the Dolphins who have rebounded from a 1-4 start with a four game winning streak. They are now above the .500 mark, though they have allowed 364.3 yards per game to opposing offenses. In terms of pass defense, Miami has surrendered only 235.6 yards per game, which actually puts them in the top ten.
Photo via PFR on Instagram.
Rams DE Robert Quinn Hospitalized
Rams defensive end Robert Quinn went to the hospital on Monday morning with a non-football-related illness, the team confirmed in an announcement. Details of the issue have not been disclosed yet, but coach Jeff Fisher did sound upbeat when discussing Quinn’s early prognosis. 
[RELATED: Doubt Emerging On Rams-Chargers L.A. Deal?]
“I spoke with Rob several hours ago, in addition to Christina, his wife,” Fisher said (via the team website). “He was, in fact, admitted to the hospital this morning for tests. He’s feeling much better. He kept saying to me over and over, ‘Coach, I just want to get back and get my body right and get back to the practice field as fast as I can.’ So, we’re still undergoing tests, and things look encouraging.”
Fisher added that it is “highly unlikely” that Quinn’s current issue is related to any past malady. That would include the benign brain tumor that he was diagnosed with as a teenager.
By the end of the week, we should know much more about Quinn and fellow defensive end Eugene Sims. Sims left Sunday’s game with concussion-like symptoms, leaving Quinn to play an uncommonly high number of snaps. Next up for Los Angeles is a home game against the Dolphins on Sunday afternoon.
Doubt Emerging On Rams-Chargers L.A. Deal?
San Diego citizens resoundingly disapproving Measure C on Tuesday sent a clear signal to the city’s desire for public funding to go toward a Chargers downtown stadium. Although the Chargers are currently leaning toward playing 2017 in San Diego, their long-term future seems to point toward Los Angeles.
The Chargers and Rams have agreed in principle on a deal to share a stadium in Inglewood, Calif., reaching that agreement fairly quickly after the Rams received the vote to relocate. But doubt has emerged on the teams following through on striking an official deal, Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk reports. The concern resides at the league level regarding the teams’ ability to share a market and rebuild the Los Angeles fanbase. Rumors have not tabbed Stan Kroenke as being particularly enthusiastic about sharing the coveted market.
For the Rams, that’s a more natural fit given their history as the city’s longest-tenured occupant (1946-94, 2016). The Bolts, though, played in L.A. in 1960 before quickly moving to San Diego to begin their second year of existence. A move back, from a pure fan-interest standpoint, would be puzzling, even if it’s been long-rumored. The Chargers do not possess a top-flight team, having failed to win 10 games in a season since 2009 and would be the second franchise arriving in a market that was dormant for 21 seasons. It’s difficult to see the interest spawning immediately, especially if San Diego-based Chargers fans are reluctant to support a nearby team that left the city.
Nevertheless, the Bolts’ stadium measure failing on this level — it received 43.1 percent of the vote when a two-thirds majority was required — points them out of town. But Dean Spanos potentially keeping his team in San Diego in 2017 would allow the clock to expire on the NFL’s initial agreement, which gives the Chargers until Jan. 15 of next year to move before the Raiders receive that opportunity. An extension on this agreement seems likely, but the Raiders’ complex path to Las Vegas complicates this.
“If Dean stays, it’s not because he thinks he can get a stadium in San Diego,” one ownership source said, via Jason La Canfora of CBSSports.com. “It’s just because he doesn’t want to take the deal in Inglewood.”
Spanos’ franchise having suffered two stinging defeats regarding a stadium in 2016 lead owners to believe he will relocate to L.A., per La Canfora, with no stealth plan existing to make everyone happy in San Diego. Sources told the writer the Inglewood arrangement would be one Spanos is willing to live with, regardless of the team delaying a move as long as it can.
The Chargers putting a new proposal on a future ballot would give the team more of a chance to find a workable solution for the city since this one came about rather quickly. But unless a California Supreme Court decision results in the super-majority requirement being again reduced to the 50 percent threshold at which Measure C was previously set to face, the Bolts may not have a better option than joining the Rams in Los Angeles. Otherwise, it will mean continuing to play at a 49-year-old stadium they’ve long since resented.
Jared Goff Could Start Next Week
We heard just last week that Rams rookie signal-caller Jared Goff was unlikely to start a game in the near future, or at least until the team was officially eliminated from playoff contention. Head coach Jeff Fisher implied that Goff was simply not ready to be thrust into game action, and as poorly as incumbent starter Case Keenum has played, it seemed as if his job would be safe for a few more weeks.
Today, however, ESPN’s Adam Schefter passes along a rather different report. Per Schefter, if Keenum struggles this week against the Jets, Los Angeles could give Goff the nod as early as next week’s matchup with the Dolphins. The Rams are hosting Miami next week, and LA wants to give Goff his first start at home in front of a friendly and supportive crowd. The decision has not been set in stone, and Keenum can apparently hang on to the starting job if he performs well against the Jets.
The odds of that, however, seem slim. In his second season with the Rams, who sit at 3-5 as losers of four straight, Keenum has completed 61.5 percent of his passes for 2,004 yards, with nine touchdowns and 11 interceptions in eight games. He ranks last in the league in Total QBR (39.6) among qualified starters.
Those struggles have understandably led to calls for Goff, this year’s No. 1 overall draft pick, to get his shot. Several weeks ago, reports indicated that Goff had made progress in terms of learning the offense, and now he may get a chance to show what he has learned on a national stage.
Chargers Likely To Play 2017 In San Diego
The plan to construct a publicly funded $1.15 billion stadium for the Chargers in downtown San Diego went up in flames on Election Day, as just 43.1 percent of voters signed off on a proposal that needed two-thirds approval to pass. Nevertheless, there’s optimism about an eventual deal, writes David Garrick of the San Diego Union-Tribune.
“While there isn’t support for this particular measure, the results demonstrate that a large number of San Diegans love the Bolts and want them to stay,” said Mayor Kevin Faulconer. “We now have momentum to work together with the Chargers to develop a new solution to keep the team in San Diego.”
For his part, owner Dean Spanos revealed Wednesday that he plans to put the franchise’s future on the backburner until after the season (via Josh Alper of Pro Football Talk).
“Over the coming weeks you may hear news about steps that we must take to preserve all of our options. But please know that I don’t intend to make any decisions until after the regular season ends and that, in the meantime, I hope to enjoy with you one great Chargers game after another,” stated Spanos.
The Chargers have until Jan. 15 to choose whether to relocate to Los Angeles and eventually share an Inglewood facility with the Rams, but Ian Rapoport of NFL.com reports that they’re likely to delay the LA decision until 2018 and put a new San Diego stadium on the ballot again next year. In another scenario, the Chargers and Raiders could agree to avoid LA relocation in 2017 and focus on San Diego and Las Vegas, respectively, as neither wants to share a stadium with the Rams, according to Rapoport (Twitter links).
The Chargers’ best hope for a long-term solution in San Diego is for the California Supreme Court to drop the need for two-thirds approval on taxpayer-funded projects to a simple majority, contends Mike Florio of PFT. Even if that happens, the Chargers might not return a stadium proposal to the ballot until 2020, per Florio, which differs from Rapoport’s 2017 suggestion. The Bolts’ lease in San Diego runs through 2020, so the team could continue playing at Qualcomm Stadium over the next few years and reassesses its options after the next presidential election.
While a move to LA in 2017 is still possible, the Chargers will only have a two-week window to execute it if Spanos actually does table his relocation thoughts until season’s end. Further, the leverage in negotiations would belong to Rams owner Stan Kroenke, notes Florio, making an agreement all the more difficult to hammer out. Should they reach a deal, the Chargers would likely head to LA immediately and split the Coliseum with the Rams over the next two years. The clubs would then move into the Inglewood stadium in time for the 2019 campaign.
Cris Carter on Jared Goff: "They messed this pick up."
- Following news that Rams rookie quarterback Jared Goff was unlikely to start in the near future, Hall of Famer Cris Carter blasted the top-overall pick in an interview with Colin Cowherd on Fox Sports Radio. “The guys know he can’t play,” Carter said (via John Breech of CBSSports.com). “They messed this pick up.”
[SOURCE LINK]
Jared Goff Unlikely To Start In Near Future
Speaking to the media today, Rams head coach Jeff Fisher announced that Case Keenum will remain the club’s starting quarterback, according to Alden Gonzalez of ESPN.com (Twitter links). Moreover, first overall pick Jared Goff is unlikely to start for Los Angeles until the team is eliminated from postseason contention, per Ian Rapoport of NFL.com.
[RELATED: Los Angeles Rams Depth Chart]
“I know everybody wants to talk about it, and that’s the big question,” said Fisher. “Again, he’s going to play. Whether it’s the following week, or the following week, or what have you. It’s eventually going to happen. But big picture, as I keep saying, this is about making sure he’s ready to go out there and be sharp and give us a chance to win. The quarterback position is not easy.”
The Rams won’t turn to Goff barring an “epic collapse” from Keenum, according to Rapoport, although it could be argued that Keenum’s four interception game against the Giants in Week 8 was just that. Keenum turned in another poor result on Sunday, completing only 27 of 46 attempts for 296 yards, one touchdown, and one interception as Los Angeles fell to Carolina. For the season, Keenum has completed 61.5% of his passes for nine scores and 11 interceptions.
At 3-5, the Rams aren’t particularly close to falling out of playoff contention — they currently sit behind the Seahawks (4-2-1 heading into tonight’s game) and the Cardinals (3-4-1) in the NFC West. But their chances are certainly slim, as Football Outsiders gave Los Angeles only a 10.7% chance of making the postseason before yesterday’s loss. Still, it doesn’t appear as though Goff is set to enter the starting lineup any time soon.