Super Bowl 53: Jared Goff opens up on his loss to the Patriots

Rams quarterback Jared Goff recently explained what “really bothered” him the most in his team’s defeat to the Patriots in Super Bowl 53.

With most NFL teams set to begin their mandatory minicamps this week, the time has officially come (if it hasn’t come already) to turn the page on the 2018/2019 season and really dive headlong into the 2019/2020 season. As Patriots head coach Bill Belichick would say, whatever happened last year is last year at this point… whether you won the Super Bowl, lost the Super Bowl, made the playoffs, or finished last in the league.

Los Angeles Rams quarterback Jared Goff has had a full four months now to reflect and to compartmentalize, ever since his team fell to the New England Patriots by a final score of 13-3 in Super Bowl 53 in Atlanta.

So when Goff was recently asked at an OTA about his own performance – and the Rams’ offensive performance as a whole – in that game, no one could have blamed him for giving a Belichickian answer, like “next question” or “we’re on to this season.”

Instead, Goff decided to open up a bit on what made that night so particularly frustrating for him.

“The fact that our defense played the game they did, and (defensive coordinator) Wade (Phillips) coached the way he did, all the plays we made — we got an interception on the first play of the game — and offensively, and me personally, we weren’t able to hold up our end, that’s what really bothered me,” Goff told Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer. “At this point, late May, early June, I’m able to move past that, and you’re on to the next step of your career and your life. But for a while there, that was the big sticking point in my head.”

It’s the latest instance of a Los Angeles Ram talking to the press about what it’s like to lose the biggest game of your life, potentially. L.A. head coach Sean McVay broke down what the Patriots did defensively to flummox his squad, tipping his cap to Belichick before admitting that the loss led to “a lot of drinking” as a coping mechanism to move on emotionally.

New England’s victory garnered the franchise a record-tying sixth Lombardi Trophy. If the Patriots can win another, they’ll pass the Pittsburgh Steelers for the most Super Bowl titles all-time.