While the story of the wild-card matchup between the Los Angeles Rams and Detroit Lions this week is Matthew Stafford’s return to Detroit, the other quarterback is once again being put on the periphery. Jared Goff is also going to play in a revenge game, as he was sent from the Rams to the Lions in the Stafford trade.
At the time, Los Angeles was coming off a playoff appearance with Goff at quarterback and didn’t appear to need an upgrade. However, McVay opted to pull the trigger on acquiring Stafford anyway, but he regrets how much he pushed Goff aside in the process.
“Could it have been handled better on my end? Absolutely,” McVay said, via ProFootballTalk. “I’ll never run away from that. But the further you get away from it the more you try to grow as a person, as a man, as a leader. He deserved better than the way that it all went down. I’ll acknowledge that. And I think he knows that too. And I’m not afraid to admit to those things, but I think we’re all better being able to look back on those things. And I do have more appreciation for him as time goes on.”
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McVay and Goff had some good years together in Los Angeles, which included a Super Bowl appearance during the 2018 season. However, that didn’t stop Los Angeles from trading Goff, two first-round picks and a third-round pick for Stafford in 2021.
The way things ended will always be a sour note for Goff, which created a chip on his shoulder.
“Of course,” Goff said about still having that motivation, via ESPN’s Eric Woodyard. “I think it'll never leave me, and I think that's a good thing.”
The Rams won the Super Bowl in Stafford’s first season with them, immediately validating the trade from their end. Meanwhile, Goff won just three games with the Lions in 2021, but over time he helped lead Detroit’s rebuild, culminating in the Lions’ first division title in three decades.
At the time, it seemed that Goff was getting the short end of the stick, but the Stafford-for-Goff trade has become a rare win-win trade in the NFL.
