The Los Angeles Rams’ trade for Matthew Stafford has officially worked out as the team reached the Super Bowl in his first season after being acquired last offseason from the Detroit Lions. The Rams sent quarterback Jared Goff, two first-round picks (2022, 2023) and a 2021 third-round pick to the Lions for Stafford. While the two teams agreed to the trade last January, the deal could not officially be announced until March.
Los Angeles made the Super Bowl with Goff as quarterback during the 2018 season, but the offense has a bit more upside with Stafford under center. Stafford threw 41 touchdowns during his first season with the Rams, well above Goff’s career high of 32 in 2018. Rams head coach Sean McVay explained why the team made the aggressive move to acquire Stafford.
“Going back to when this all went down, it was more about the opportunity to acquire Matthew and what we felt like that meant for our football team,” McVay said in October, per ESPN. “… We felt [the trade] was a rare opportunity to acquire a player of Matthew’s caliber, that those opportunities just don’t come up often.”
Goff on Rams Making the Super Bowl: ‘You Feel Like You Can Be Missing Out at Times’
As he watched his former team make the Super Bowl in their first year without him, Goff admitted he has mixed emotions about the game. Goff still has relationships with Rams players but conceded that there is a feeling of “missing out.”
“Most of all, I’m happy for those guys because I know how hard they’ve worked, and they deserve it,” Goff told Bally Sports’ Mike Silver during a February 8 feature. “Of course, as a human, you feel like you can be missing out at times. But I think about, if I was in that situation, how would they feel about me? They’d be equally as thrilled for me.
“It’s something that you wish you could be a part of in your own right with the Lions, but we’re not right now — and watching them do it is just another part of the journey.”
The good news for Goff and the Lions is that they get the Rams’ first-round picks for the next two seasons as part of the deal. Goff is hoping the Lions can do their own rebuild similar to what the Bengals just orchestrated going from the Senior Bowl to Super Bowl.
McVay & Stafford Were Both in Cancun When the Trade Talks Were Happening
According to Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer, McVay and his fiancee Veronica Khomyn were in Cancun at the same time as Stafford and his wife Kelly Stafford while the trade was being completed. The new coach-quarterback duo were able to celebrate the trade after it was agreed upon by both teams.
“Meanwhile, once the deal was agreed to, some 1,100 miles south of L.A., McVay and Stafford were sitting down for dinner to celebrate a fresh start of their own, near the Chileno Bay Resort in Los Cabos, Mexico, with Stafford’s wife Kelly and McVay’s fiancé Veronika,” Breer wrote on January 31, 2021. “The coach and his new quarterback happened to be among a number of NFL people in Cabo last week—Saints coach Sean Payton and QB Drew Brees, Rams LT Andrew Whitworth and others were nearby, too, over the last few days.
“A wild coincidence, to be sure, in a really wild few days that landed Stafford in his preferred new destination and McVay his preferred new quarterback. For both, there are things that they’re letting go of. Stafford’s saying goodbye to the only professional home he’s known in his 12 years in the NFL. McVay’s bidding farewell to a 26-year-old quarterback, in Goff, he built around during his first four years as a head coach, and grew a great appreciation for.”
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Matthew Stafford Trade: What Did Rams Give the Lions in Deal?