I was so convinced that we won the Goff trade. I still think (more like hope!) we did, but not so sure these days. To help me think about it, I’ve pondered this:
After one-half season seeing what’s gone down, would you make the following trade:
Lions get: Matt Stafford
Rams get: 2022 first round pick (later one), 2023 first round pick (later one), 2022 third round pick (later one), Jarod Goff.
Keep in mind we still have our own first and third round draft picks.
Assume all parties (esp. Stafford) would want it to happen, even if that’s not true.
Would you do it?
I would NOT do it! The main reason is Stafford is 33 years old and the Lions are still at least 2 years away from assembling a competitive roster, essentially just wasting his talent. Even with Stafford, we would be winning 5 or 6 games maximum with this roster and would be spinning our wheels and going nowhere fast. It was time to strip it all down and go full rebuild with lots of draft capital. Bringing Stafford back wouldn’t solve anything for this team unless you consider 5-12 and in salary cap hell a success.
I thought the trade was super 1-sided for us. I must admit I’ve adjusted that somewhat based on Staff’s success and also just how bad Goff is. Staff still has to prove he can win when it counts. Get his team the first round bye. Win playoff games. That’s what they traded all those picks for. Already a win for the Lions. TBD for the Rams. The only thing that could make this bad is if we Joey Harrington the Goff situation and not admit our mistake. We blew almost a decade on Joey and it was so stupid. We could have draft Aaron Rodgers for gods sake but instead we were drafting 3 straight WRs in the top 10.
I think it’s TBD for both teams still. We gotta see who we draft with those 2 first rounders in coming years. And we gotta see if Stafford gets the Rams over the Goff hump, remember Goff won a playoff game last year. There is a real chance the Rams lose in the 1st round of the playoffs if they don’t win the division.
I’ve always looked at picks, as picks. I see the use of them as a secondary transaction not related to the trade. It’s like if you traded a 3rd round pick for the 1st overall pick and then you took Ryan Leaf. Was that a bad trade? No. That was a great trade. That was a bad pick.
The value of the trade was great in your example, the execution on the pick was horrific. I can see the logic. But, it would be the same GM making both moves, so in totality, the GM would suck overall because he can’t evaluate talent properly. That’s the issue with magic beans!
I think the Rams will know if they won before we do. If they get to the SB, they’ve probably won. If they win the SB, they crushed it.
If we get two picks at 32, we probably lost. If Goff is no better than what we’ve seen so far, we’ve probably lost.
But if they get knocked out in the 1st round this year, they have no money and no draft picks to improve for next year. 2022 they could be worse than this year.
They still have to play both the Cards and the 49ers again this year. The Rams got dominated by both divisional rivals already in their 1st meetings. I said before the season started, the Rams will be lucky to get a wildcard that division is loaded. Imagine if Russel Wilson had been healthy all year. The Hawks would be in the playoff hunt as well. Tough division.
If they win the division, they will be in great shape, even if they face SF. If AZ wins the division, they’ll have to play (probably) TB or Dallas in round 1 on the road. That’s tough.
They have the ability to kick the can down the road quite a ways if they want… because they have a ton of money due as “base salary” to the core players. They are tight to the cap at the moment… but unlike the Saints… they have not been restructuring many players… yet.
IIRC… they have over $ 70 million in base salaries due to the top 8 players or so… so they could open up $60 million in cap space for 2022 and just push that money forward.
The window will close eventually… but they can keep it open for several more years.
Good point and that’s exactly what they will have to do because they clearly don’t have any draft picks to fill out the roster. Depth is extremely important and that’s been one of the Rams issues this season. They got tons of stars, but not great depth and injuries are going to happen, it’s the nfl.
No, the Lions were going nowhere with Stafford. The roster would take years to construct even with him and by the time they might have had a good enough roster, he’d be too old and they’d be stuck on an endless cycle of mediocrity.
They needed a fresh start just as badly as he did and they needed the package of futures to build the roster. I was actually glad he requested a trade because I was worried that they’d hold on to him and continue to be a team with no direction. They’re a worse team in the short term but it’s better for the possibility of a better long term that they and Stafford parted ways.
This is a rebuild. It does no good to have an aging gunslinger at the expense of 3 other core players.
As Stafford said and most agree with, he’s going to produce a certain number of wins. Those wins are more a hindrance to a rebuilding effort than a help.
I tend to agree. It opens up the question whether you would do it for any NFL QB. Rogers? not me. Mahomes? Probably. Allen? I think so. Prescott? no. Watson? no. Brady? gosh, but no.
Trade Stafford for those guys if it was an option?
Mahomes and Allen? Of course but the Lions would adding a gazillion 1st rounders and it’s entirely unrealistic.
Watson? Footballwise, absolutely, but too much baggage with the legal stuff so, probably not.
The others? Nah, too old. The roster just wasn’t good enough to win now with any QB. Probably Prescott but not sure how good he is away from all the weapons.
The only trades that were realistically available anyway was for 1sts and a salary dump because the team trading for Stafford had to unload a salary.
Essentially, Two future 1sts+3rd+Goff or #9+Bridgewater. I still like the Rams package more.
