Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio: “I would not be surprised if Jared Goff doesn’t get a second contract with the Los Angeles Rams.”

Dan Patrick: If you were gonna give out these franchise contracts, would you be willing to give it to [Dallas Cowboys QB] Dak Prescott or [Los Angeles Rams QB] Jared Goff first?

Mike Florio: Oh, Dak Prescott without question. I’m very skeptical about Jared Goff, and I would not be surprised if he doesn’t get a second contract with the Rams.

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I think there’s a chance that [Rams Head Coach] Sean McVay at some point is going to find his own guy. Remember, he inherited Jared Goff. There may be somebody that McVay is eyeing at some point to come in and be that long-term guy, because you gotta ask yourself, “Am I willing to commit $35m a year to Jared Goff? Or could I find a younger guy who I get a lot cheaper and put pieces around him?”

That’s the biggest problem now. You have those early years with a young quarterback where he’s dirt cheap under the rookie wage scale. And then you have to ask yourself, “Do we pay huge money?” Eventually, somebody’s going to say, “We’re just not going to pay the huge money. We’ll go find somebody else.”

That was Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio on Dan Patrick today offering a somewhat new angle on a take we’ve seen before. In mid-September, ESPN’s Bill Barnwell ran through the idea of trading Goff and building around a new, inexpensive quarterback through the draft that kicked the “System QB” calls into gear. So we’ve seen various versions of this since then, though I haven’t seen one that so vociferously advocated for Prescott to be worth paying top dollar while suggesting Goff hasn’t earned the same.

What I think is a bit off here is the timing.

Halfway through Jared Goff’s contract, here’s how an extension is shaping up

Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

Prescott’s going into his final contract season. Goff is under contract for two more. There’s no reason for the Rams to move on this now. They’ve handed out major contract extensions to three players after three seasons in the era with Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President of Football Operations Kevin Demoff and Special Assistant Tony Pastoors handling contract negotiations: EDGE Robert Quinn, WR Tavon Austin and RB Todd Gurley. I’m not sure any of the three look favorable after the fact.

The prudent thing here is to let Goff play out the two years. Should he continue to improve along the line of trajectory he has set out from his rookie season through last year, I don’t see how the Rams could avoid handing him a record-breaking deal. Barnwell himself acknowledged that should Goff become “a face-of-the-franchise superstar,” the Rams would have to re-sign him. And obviously on the heels of the Super Bowl performance should Goff have a regression in 2019, there will be an even larger plurality (a majority?) of Rams fans who voice skepticism about Goff not just as the long-term starter, but a handsomely-paid long-term starter.

It’s May. Taeks like this are going to cut through the silence. In the end, the Rams need to be patient enough to let the two seasons they have Goff locked up for in front of them pass to have as much data as possible before handing out the biggest contract in team history.