For being one of the biggest blockbuster trades in the NFL history, the swap that sent Matthew Stafford to the Los Angeles Rams and Jared Goff to the Detroit Lions hinged on one simple, sort of boring idea:
Stafford is a slightly better-than-average NFL quarterback, while Goff is a slightly below-average NFL QB. And with coach Sean McVay calling the plays, that’s all the upgrade the Rams needed.
Matthew Stafford, who turns 33 next Sunday, is a veteran who has produced steadily throughout his career, often in the obscurity caused by Detroit’s relentless mediocrity (he’s played in three playoff games in 12 years).
Goff, meanwhile, is 26-years-old and in the midst of the extension on his rookie deal after being the No. 1 pick in 2016. He’s been to a Super Bowl, but most of his success has been attributed to playing for McVay, whose scheme simplifies the process for quarterbacks and lets them throw to open receivers.
Stafford and Goff are similar players: they have good arm strength, decent accuracy and, while not mobile, they move well enough in the pocket. It’s just that Stafford has been slightly better, in what most would agree was a less-impressive offense.
The stats from the regular season show as much. Goff’s DVOA was 22nd (-1.1%) while Stafford’s was 14th (7.7%), and Goff’s DYAR was 20th (385) and Stafford’s was 14th (684).
Stafford is the better player, but is the margin between the two really worth first-round picks (2022, 2023) and a third-rounder (2021)? That’s what we’ll be waiting to find out.
That statistical gap is the first layer that sets the table for this complicated trade, which will put an enormous amount of pressure on McVay to make it worth the Rams’ while. Let’s break it down point-by-point as we start to consider how this deal will ultimately be evaluated.
[jwplayer nqg1HRjM-q2aasYxh]
Looking at the contracts
When you take a look at the finances, you see, again, that Goff’s deal is actually only slightly worse. Goff was set to work on a bloated contract for L.A., but now that the Rams have eaten a $22 million deal by trading him, he is basically on two-year contract worth $27.8 million in 2021 and $25.5 million in 2022. The Lions, meanwhile, have to eat $19 million in dead cap, and Stafford is due $43 million over the next two years ($23M in 2021 and $20M in 2022). Though Stafford demanded a trade, he is not asking for a new contract, per NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport.
It’s enough to make your head spin, right? Suffice it to say that both teams are taking on huge dead cap hits — two of the five biggest in NFL history — in order to move on from their quarterback, because they feel like they’re getting something big out of it. In the case of the Lions, they’re getting a massive draft haul and a short-term starter at quarterback. That’s a pretty clear win after Stafford said he wanted to be traded.
In the case of the Rams, they think they’re getting a quarterback who, in McVay’s system, will be enough to push for another Super Bowl.
An important reminder: Including Goff forced the Rams to pay even more
With that contractual context, it’s clear that the Rams were dumping off Goff’s deal on the Lions. He was value detracted — not added. L.A. was fed up with Goff, and felt it needed to bail on his contract.
That’s probably why they sent two first-round picks to the Lions in this deal, rather than just one. Goff’s contract and a first-rounder were one part of the transaction: Here’s some sugar (a first-rounder) to make the salary cap go down. And then there was another part of the deal deal: Stafford for another first-rounder and a third-rounder.
The Rams are betting they can do what the the Lions couldn't
It’s clear the Rams have a lot of faith.
In Stafford, sure.
But really: In McVay’s ability to elevate any QB to play his best.
Because, again, that’s the heart of this deal. My colleague Steven Ruiz wrote back in 2018 that if the Rams thought Goff was really their future, they were in trouble. Well, the Rams ran it back another two seasons anyway, saw very little improvement and decided that this version of Goff was the best version of Goff — and it wasn’t good enough.
Meanwhile Rams general manager Les Snead looked at Stafford and wondered what he could be. Because who hasn’t? Like Philip Rivers, Stafford has spent a career compiling impressive stats for an organization that can’t get out of its own way — most recently firing Matt Patricia after a wildly dysfunctional few seasons.
Now we’ll get a chance to find out.
Of course, the Rams are going to have to maximize Stafford’s talent amid an unprecedented run of avoiding the first round of the draft. They haven’t picked in the first round since taking Goff in 2016, and won’t pick there until 2024 — a mind-bogglingly long stretch.
Is Stafford really the difference between not winning and winning a Super Bowl?
The above question is too difficult to answer, of course, because football’s a complex game shaped by so many factors. But we know that a QB impacts the game more than any other player, and that going from Goff to Stafford should put the Rams in better position to return to the big game they lost after the 2018 season.
It’s hard to pin this year’s failure fully on Goff, who was playing with a surgically repaired thumb in the 32-18 loss to Green Bay in the Divisional Round. Injuries that limited Aaron Donald and Cooper Kupp had a lot to do with Los Angeles’ struggles.
After the season, the Chargers poached first-year defensive coordinator Brandon Staley to be their head coach, and that probably gave the Rams cause for even more urgency. Staley’s defense carried the team at times this year, and key players like Donald and Ramsey aren’t getting any younger.
So Snead and McVay ultimately decided Goff was they change they needed to make.
Publicly available metrics support that notion. Sports Info Solutions developed the Total Points Earned stat, which attempts to give credit or blame to players for their actions on every play.
Goff earned 51 points in 15 games during the 2020 season. Stafford had 86 in one additional game.
The Rams are betting that Stafford will be even better with McVay’s help, meaning they’ll continue to compete for NFC West titles and make playoff runs, meaning those first-round picks they gave up will come at the latter part of the round. They’re guessing that, in a better system, Stafford will easily re-write his narrative (no playoff wins) and begin to get the credit he deserves.
The risk here is that, without those draft picks, the Rams fail to support Stafford and he proves incapable of carrying the offense, even with McVay’s help. Los Angeles has no first-round picks in sight and a salary cap situation that’s dubious, with the third-least cap space in 2021 and the seventh-least projected cap space in 2022.
So this really is all on McVay. He’s had to adjust his offense to stay ahead of defensive coordinators, and he probably felt limited by Goff. It’s probably going to be enough to have a more proficient QB to work with. But if McVay can broaden and diversify his scheme while maximizing Stafford’s talents then the Rams would easily “win” the trade.
