ATLANTA — Fifteen minutes after the final gun sounded for Bowl XLIII, Jared Goff, wearing only blue spandex pants, sat at his locker, head in his hands, face puffy with emotion. Eventually he got up and went over to 10-year veteran center John Sullivan, who was at his locker, fully dressed.
Sullivan, 33, is the sagacious on-field brain of L.A.’s offense; when he first came aboard in 2017, then-first-year head coach Sean McVay would censure him for calling out the defense at practices before others—including Goff—could possibly decipher it themselves. At Sullivan’s locker on Sunday, the veteran center and third-year quarterback whispered back and forth, Goff describing plays with slow, sweeping arm motions, Sullivan, hands in his pockets, nodding patiently.