The Los Angeles Rams rocked the football world on Saturday night. After reaching the postseason and defeating their division rivals Seattle Seahawks in the Wild Card round three weeks ago, Rams now has a new defender. The team dispatched Jared Goff to Detroit, sending him with three draft choices for Lions to veteran interlocutor Matthew Stafford.
But Stafford was not the first quarterback the Rams asked about, apparently. According to Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times, the Rams called the Green Bay Packers to ask about the possibility of acquiring Aaron Rodgers.
Evidently, this conversation was extremely short.
When the Rams “fled” at Rodgers, the Packers evidently quickly broke down any conversation with little or no serious consideration. The Packers were “adamant,” in Farmer’s words, that they would not move Rodgers, a sentiment that underscores Team Chairman Mark Murphy’s recent comments about the Packers indeed maintaining 12th position for the foreseeable future.
It should come as no surprise that the Rams were interested in Rodgers. After all, he will likely win the AP MVP award for the 2020 season – to be announced next Saturday at the NFL Honors. The Rams also took a close and personal look at Rodgers as he destroyed LA’s best defense in the Division Playoffs. It shouldn’t be equally surprising, however, that the Packers were reluctant to let him go for the same reasons, especially if the Rams had insisted on making Goff part of the deal.
Instead, Rams general manager Les Snead and chief coach Sean McVay switched to Matthew Stafford after the Packers ended all Rodgers business discussions, culminating in Saturday’s business deal. The Rams will send a choice of the third round of the draft in 2021 and the choices of the first round of the team in 2022 and 2023 for the Lions to exchange Goff for Stafford.
Stafford’s price is astronomical in large part because of Goff’s contract, as the Rams apparently needed to add extra draft picks to unload Goff in Detroit. He will receive $ 43 million in guaranteed money over the next two years, the first two years in an agreement he signed before the 2019 season, ensuring that Lions will have Goff as their titleholder in 2021 unless they find another buyer for him.
Detroit is signaling a complete rebuild with this change, adding choices for a quarterback who has regressed significantly in the past two years after posting excellent campaigns in his second and third seasons in the NFL. Stafford, for his part, gives the Rams a proven veteran with a big arm who must fit perfectly in McVay’s game passing and action game. This is definitely a short-term update for the Rams in that position, but how much of an update is up for debate.
Aaron Rodgers? That would have been an incredible update for LA. But the Packers were not willing to let that happen at any price.