Former Cal Bears quarterback Jared Goff was thrown right into the spotlight at the ripe age of 21 last year. After going No. 1 overall in the 2016 NFL Draft to the Rams, Goff was made into one of the star characters on HBO's Hard Knocks as cameras followed the team during training camp.
Right off the bat, the show didn't always give the best impression of Goff. Going from a spread offense at Cal to struggling with snaps under center and having hiccups with the verbiage of an NFL offense is natural. What the show tried to bring to life were Goff's smarts, or lack thereof in some cases.
"Which Hard Knocks storyline was the last to die: William Hayes’s obsession with mermaids and dinosaurs, or you not knowing which directions the sun rises and sets?" Goff was recently asked by Sports Illustrated.
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"They’re both alive and well. I hear about the sun thing quite often. That was so overblown," Goff said while laughing at the question.
"Hard Knocks is good. Hard Knocks is fun. But there are a lot of things that they like to script a little bit. And making fun of the rookie is definitely one of those things."
This may hurt some fans, but surprise, surprise this reality show goes off a script a lot. That's exactly how a running joke on Goff started that tried to pereceive the rookie didn't know which way the sun rises and sets.
"So that moment with you in the helicopter, it was tweaked? Was it more that you were confused about the sun’s direction relative to where you were in the air?" SI asked Goff.
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"Exactly. It was made into a bigger deal than it should’ve been," Goff explained. "But it was funny. I’ve had some fun with it."
Goff played in eight games as a rookie in 2016, starting seven of them. The product of Marin Catholic High School passed for 1,089 yards and five touchdowns to seven interceptions.