For weeks, the deeply flawed crown jewels of the 2016 NFL draft quarterback class presented the league with an urgent question about how to resolve a huge mistake. While the Philadelphia Eagles reflected on the future of Carson Wentz and the Los Angeles Rams considered switching Jared Goff, the NFL teams observed a problem that spanned both franchises.
Of course you could find a business partner willing to restart Goff or Wentz’s careers, but what could convince a business partner to swallow the considerable salary owed to each one?
Well, the Rams just established the plan. And for the second time since 2017, the league has what amounts to an NBA-style commercial sweetener in exchange for eating a player’s massive salary. This is one of the fundamental foundations of the impressive Saturday night trade deal that is supposed to send Detroit Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford to the Rams in exchange for Goff and three valuable draft choices – including first round choices in the 2022 and 2023 drafts and a third round choice in this year’s draft. Just in terms of value, the trio of choices represents considerably more than many believed Stafford, then 33, would achieve in a business. The setback was the inclusion of Goff’s Rams, including $ 43 million in guaranteed money that will have to be paid to him in the 2021 and 2022 seasons. It was this wage guarantee that put the Rams in a position to sweeten his business for Stafford.
So, how much is $ 43 million in guaranteed money worth? Multiple league sources talking about the deal in the early hours of Sunday said the Rams’ inclusion of a runoff choice likely pushed LA to the Washington football team by Stafford.
If that sounds a bit like an NBA team selling a toxic wage asset with a draft choice, it’s because it is exactly what it is. And this is the second time the NFL has seen this happen since 2017. The other was the Houston Texans tying a second and sixth round choice to Brock Osweiler, and sending that package to the Cleveland Browns for a fourth round conditional choice. The problem was that the Browns used their wide wage cap space to eat Osweiler’s $ 16 million in guaranteed wages, which the franchise did before launching Osweiler before the start of the 2017 season.
It is highly unlikely that Lions will make this kind of move with Goff, who was the toast of Los Angeles and considered a rising MVP candidate in the 2019 season after a 2018 campaign that saw him launch for 32 touchdowns and 12 interceptions, along with 4,638 passing yards. Instead, what the Rams achieved was a player severely limited by an offensive line that fell apart, leaving coach Sean McVay in the early stages of a frustrating belief that Goff’s limitations may never allow him to overcome the coach’s need to basically micromanage all parts of the pass offense.
That 2019 season started putting the Rams in a tough spot with Goff, who had just signed an extensive $ 134 million contract extension for four years before the season. It was an agreement that seemed to make Goff non-negotiable or non-negotiable until after the 2022 season. Of course, this was an ideology that did not take into account the open nature of the Rams with some of their talent base, which included absorbing some considerable capitalization hits while downloading talent. Nor did it take into account the team’s aggressive use of its choices in the first round draft to achieve the necessary change.
Still, few in the league believed that a commercial suitor could be found to assume what would be a terrible contract after watching Goff’s fight during the 2020 season. Many saw the Rams’ problems as similar to those that plague the Eagles and Wentz , with the team tied to an avalanche of guaranteed money that other franchises would not want to import, especially at the cost of draft assets. What nobody seemed to consider in the league was the possibility of reversing the typical mechanics of a trade, with the Eagles or Rams sending their quarterback and contract out of town with some draft choices to come to terms.
It was an irritating enough question that the Eagles didn’t even think twice about it. Instead, the team fired its head coach Doug Pederson and leaned over to restart Wentz with a new coaching staff and at the request of team owner Jeffrey Lurie. The Rams went in the opposite direction. That made sense, given that the franchise would never have sacrificed McVay for Goff in the same way that the Eagles slipped on Pederson to get Wentz’s plan back on track. Instead, the Rams gave the league Saturday night’s plan to blow up even the most uncomfortable of contracts. Something like “hold a pick”.
Much like the Browns in 2017, it should give the NFL something to chew on, since the league has always internally disapproved of NBA machinations, like auctioning draft choices to create cap space or simply discarding commitment to big contracts. Although seen as creative in some sectors, the NFL’s problem with the maneuver is that it can tilt the playing field toward franchise owners who are willing to “buy” choices for maximum space.
The difference in this case is that Stafford and Goff provide Rams and Lions with enough coverage in this case. Stafford was not just a hot enough commodity to command a price that could have been higher than some suspected, Goff is still talented enough that a career restart seems completely possible in Detroit, perhaps to the point of justifying the guaranteed money. that he will receive paid until 2022. It is possible that everyone leaves this business feeling very well with the commodities disputed.
Truth be told, the NFL may be in a better place for that too. If we learn anything in 2020, it is that some teams make massive quarterback deals and end up regretting it. And the league gets better with teams that aggressively look for ways to be the best product on the pitch possible. If a team like the Eagles wants to keep a deal that doesn’t look so good and try to resuscitate a player and justify it, so be it. But the Rams just demonstrated that it doesn’t have to be that way. It turns out that just about anything can be remedied if a team is willing to spend to get out of it with money or draft choices.
Including a contract that seemed non-negotiable just a few weeks ago.
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