For a brief moment on Saturday night, the Detroit Lions and the Los Angeles Rams made everyone outside Kansas City and Tampa Bay forget that there was still a Super Bowl to be played, allegedly agreeing to the terms of a highly successful deal to start. the off-season of 2021. Former general choice number 1, Matthew Stafford, is going to the West Coast after 12 years at Motown, and another former number 1, the much-maligned Jared Goff, is going to Detroit to replace it.
The terms of trade: Los Angeles receives Stafford, a clear update in the quarterback before an obvious offer for an immediate title run, in exchange for Goff, a choice of the first round in 2022, the first round in 2023 and also a third shift in 2021.
Who won the deal? Who lost it? And which other players and teams in the league will benefit – or harm – because of that? Here is the summary:
Winners
Matthew Stafford
Duh. He wouldn’t have been a good soldier for more than a decade in Detroit if he hadn’t enjoyed the chance to lead the Lions, but that was already behind schedule. Lions are about to rebuild (again). Furthermore, this is not just an old change of scenery. Stafford can now call sunny California home, with Sean McVay as his head coach, and all kinds of promising weapons around him, not to mention a robust defense. Your chance to make a real impact in the postseason should happen sooner or later.
Sean McVay
We’re putting McVay instead of the Rams here, because LA as a whole still has to rely on the fact that it can never make a choice in the first round again (hyperbole, yes, but the way Les Snead operates, who knows?). He must also take into account the fact that Stafford, although a clear and obvious update on Goff, was rarely great QB. He’s good, no doubt, and the supporting cast of Rams should bring out the best in him, but we’re not talking about an option in the top five or eight here. Still, if you’re McVay, you have every reason to make jumping jacks. Goff has been a nervous and immobile initiator far more than people realize. Stafford lets it rip and destroys it. If all goes for LA, he will have a good run in the playoffs in 2021.
Houston Texans
Do not confuse this with something that is not. Texans are an incomparable mess. And, most importantly, Stafford compensation should no be a referendum on Deshaun Watson’s expected commercial value. (The Rams gave up three choices, including two first, for Stafford it was as much, if not more, about unloading Goff’s $ 134 million deadweight from a contract than upgrading the center.) That said, this deal is available now, and the optics – representative of Stafford’s real value or not – will almost certainly benefit Houston if you’re actually listening to offers for Watson. Put it this way: no one calling about Watson can prove that the Rams poured so much into Stafford’s trade to unload Goff; they may argue otherwise (and rightly so), but the reality is that the value of erasing the Goff contract and the value of Stafford on their own cannot be totally untied. This means that if Texans are smart (big “ifs”), they will probably be able to get Watson a little more milk in a potential deal. At this point, you are probably talking about three, if not four first-round players as a starting point.
Detroit Lions
Look, catching Goff is not exactly The thing you want to start your off-season with, but it doesn’t nobody in QB, and its arrival should not prevent Detroit from considering a QB at the start of the draft. And then there’s Stafford’s choice, who wouldn’t be around for a competitive window anyway. First two and a third to deal with Goff’s short-term salary? Easy call. Lions still need to get those choices right in order to turn the tide (and, as we’ve seen with other clubs, like the Raiders, it’s easier said than done), but they are at least hanging out with their pockets full here.
Losers
Jared Goff
If Goff failed to make it work under the warm glow of the sky of his home state, Cali, and McVay’s innovative tutelage, wait until he enters the icy Motor City to play for Dan “Kneecaps” Campbell. It will be fun to see him dressed in blue honolulu, but even that vision may not last more than a few weeks if he plays alongside a revised and long-term squad project. Unless he is traded again, with Detroit simply serving as a mediator to absorb his big money, Goff is in trouble.
Indianapolis Colts
The Colts have no shortage of QBs after Philip Rivers’ retirement, but none fit better in the short and potentially long term than Stafford. Indy was made to win now, had more than enough capitalization space to handle (and even renegotiate) the Stafford business, and is not in a good position to add one of this year’s best newbie QBs. Getting Stafford would have been the cleanest way to fight again in 2021 and after. Now, they need to sort the other names on the block – most of which will require rehabilitation projects (see: Carson Wentz, Sam Darnold) – or play a free mid-level agent if they’re not going to go crazy with a day trade. job.
San Francisco 49ers (for now)
We say “for now” because, like the Colts, they really would have benefited if they connected Stafford to their playoff gauge system. But they also have a better Plan B, where their 12th overall choice in the draft can still earn them a QB prospectus or serve as a major asset in a move to a replacement for Jimmy Garoppolo. Maybe Sam Darnold is an option here, and maybe, just maybe, if the Patriots don’t come to call, Garoppolo is too. But Stafford seemed such a good fit for Kyle Shanahan.