Rams QB Jared Goff says no pain in thumb injury, good to go

Cal product says Rams had extra motivation from Hawks' celebration

Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay acknowledged being coy with the media all week leading up to his team’s win over the Seattle Seahawks, and that he in fact made the decision to start backup John Wolford early in the week.

“It’s a real credit to our players,” McVay said. “I told the team early in the week. I thought it was the right decision just based on Jared coming back from an injury. He had thumb surgery and there were some limitations with when he was even going to be able to take a snap.

“As soon as we started our preparation this week, I announced it to the team and I think it’s pretty good that it stayed in house. It’s a real credit to the kind of guys that we have when there was a lot of people that knew about it and you guys were still wondering what the hell was going on.”

That said, with John Wolford’s availability in question for next after suffering a neck stinger that required him to be transported by ambulance as a precautionary measure, it appears Jared Goff will be back in his starting role.

“My thumb is fine,” Goff said after the game. “And I’m not going to use it as an excuse for anything that didn’t go my way today or any throw. My thumb is fine. It’s coming along. It’s not 100 percent because I had surgery 10 days ago or 12 days ago or whatever. But it’s in a good place and I’m very capable of what I’ve got going on right now.”

Goff finished 9-of-19 for 155 yards and a 15-yard touchdown pass to Robert Woods. More important, he didn’t turn the ball over.

“He did a nice job handling things and really I thought our guys made some plays,” McVay said. “You look at the down the field isolation where we had (Cooper” Kupp versus Jamal Adams and Cooper went up and got that ball for a big 44-yard gain. And then really as the game progressed, I thought Jared settled in. We were able to kind of identify where are the things that you feel good about play wise for us to activate because for him to be able to even throw the football is pretty impressive.”

Goff said it was tough to know he was not going to start the game against the Seahawks, even though he felt healthy enough to play.

“As a competitor, of course I wanted to be out there and I wanted to play,” he said. “I felt like I could make a difference. It was tough. It was some long conversations that we had, but ultimately I respect (Sean McVay’s) decision. He’s the coach, he had to make a decision that he needed to make early in the week to get out in front of some stuff. I get it. But as a competitor, of course I wanted to play and I was ready to play.”

And Goff said the Rams had some extra motivation, watching the Seahawks celebrate wining the NFC West a few weeks ago after defeating the Rams 20-9 at Lumen Field.

“Two weeks ago you saw them smoking cigars, getting all excited about beating us and winning the division,” Goff said. “We’re able to come up here and beat them in their own place. It feels good.”