Matthew Stafford trade for Rams-Lions was the ultimate NFL win-win

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Reexamining the trade that sent Matthew Stafford from the Lions to the Rams.

Even though it happened only three years ago, the NFL has changed so much since 2021 that it can be hard to grasp just how crazy it was for Matthew Stafford to go to the Detroit Lions and ask to be traded to a team that could give him a chance to win a Super Bowl. An opportunity that he felt he would never get with the Lions, a mission he accomplished immediately with the Los Angeles Rams, and a crossroads he’s now face-to-face with again as the two teams meet in Sunday night’s wild card matchup.

Quarterbacks changing teams to chase championships seems like an annual tradition now, but it was practically unheard of prior to Stafford’s request to be traded. In what so far seems to be a rare win-win trade for both sides, the pressure is now on Detroit to prove that they’re as good without Stafford as Stafford is without them, with the road block between the Lions and playoff success being none other than Stafford himself.

Can the trade really be a “win-win” if the Detroit Lions lose this weekend?

Unprecedented Trade

Quarterbacks had been traded many times before Stafford, some of them had success after, but there were always extenuating circumstances that made it easier for those original franchises to be willing to part ways. Like when the Buccaneers assumed that Steve Young was a bust or when the Falcons admitted that they never really wanted Brett Favre to begin with.

It almost never happened before that a quarterback proved for a long time that he was really good and then he got traded with expected years left on his body and arm that could still propel a team to a Super Bowl. As free agents, Drew Brees and Peyton Manning had injury concerns that scared the Chargers and Colts from re-signing them (San Diego also had Philip Rivers waiting, Indianapolis was ushering in the Andrew Luck era), which helped facilitate franchise moves for those franchise quarterbacks.

The Patriots thought that Tom Brady would keep taking a discount—or that at 43, surely he wouldn’t win another Super Bowl—otherwise the GOAT would have never taken the tax breaks in Florida and stayed with New England.

But maybe it was after seeing Manning win a Super Bowl with the Broncos and Brady with the Bucs that gave Matthew Stafford the confidence to tell the Lions, the only team he had known for 12 years, that “it’s not me, it’s you” and requested a trade in 2021. Brady crawled so Stafford could walk. Stafford walked so that Russell Wilson, Deshaun Watson, and Aaron Rodgers could run.

Trade Terms

With the benefit of the Lions hiring a GM that month who had previously spent two decades with the Rams, and Sean McVay all but guaranteeing that the Jared Goff era was over when he wobbled between him and John Wolford at the end of the 2020 season, fate would have it that the team with a new $6 billion stadium, the home of the upcoming Super Bowl, and a reluctance to keep their first round picks was the perfect landing spot for Stafford.

Rams general manager Les Snead and Lions general manager Brad Holmes, his longtime protege, agreed make a deal that should satisfy the intentions of both clubs:

The Rams sent Goff, a 2022 first round pick, a 2023 first round pick, and a 2021 third round pick to the Lions.

The Lions sent Matthew Stafford to the Rams.

With the benefit of hindsight and knowing that the Browns gave up three first round picks and a fully-guaranteed contract for Watson, the Niners traded two future first round picks to select Trey Lance, it almost doesn’t sound like such a big deal. But trading two first round picks for a quarterback and expecting the move to win you a Super Bowl was unheard of at the time.

The move did the trick for the Rams, will the Lions bring it home for Detroit?

How It’s Working for the Rams

Stafford is a Super Bowl-winning quarterback now, but at the time he had never won a playoff game before. That raised the stakes considerably for Los Angeles, as some questioned if Stafford was enough of an upgrade to Goff—who the team had recently signed to a four-year, $140 million extension—to warrant giving up two first round picks and eating tens of millions in dead cap space to make the the swap, with many using the word “fleeced” to describe who won the trade.

The Rams owed $24.7 million in dead cap for Goff alone in 2021, giving the team over $45 million allocated to the quarterback position that year with Stafford’s base salary.

Anything less than a Super Bowl championship would have gotten Snead and McVay ridiculed for the rest of their careers … but because the Rams did win the Super Bowl, we’ll never know for sure.

The L.A. Rams finished 22nd in points, 14th in DVOA, and 11th in total yards in Jared Goff’s final season with the team, then improved to seventh in scoring, eighth in DVOA, and ninth in yards with Stafford in 2021.

With Stafford, the Rams started 7-1 and then won five of their last six to secure a division title over the San Francisco 49ers. That advantage proved monumental in the NFC Championship game.

The passing offense went from 16th in net yards per attempt and 26th in touchdowns with Goff in 2020, to ranking second in both categories as Stafford threw 4,886 yards and 41 touchdowns in his first year in McVay’s offense. And just as he once did for Calvin Johnson, the Lions receiver who had the most prolific single season in history (1,964 yards) with Stafford in 2012, the quarterback helped Cooper Kupp lead the NFL in catches (145), yards (1,947), and touchdowns (16) en route to winning Offensive Player of the Year.

Kupp averaged 66 yards per game with Goff as his quarterback, but then saw that number jump to 114.5 yards per game with Stafford in 2021 and 90.2 in 2022. Kupp caught 24 touchdowns in his first four seasons with the Rams, then 22 touchdowns in the next two seasons, and he missed half of the second year with Stafford. In his first postseason with Stafford, Kupp had 478 yards and six touchdowns in four games, then won Super Bowl MVP.

Could the Rams have done this with the best version of Jared Goff that McVay had ever had?

Yes, the Rams made the Super Bowl with Goff in 2018. He threw one touchdown and two interceptions in three playoff games, losing the Super Bowl 13-3.

In Stafford’s first playoff run with the Rams, he had nine touchdowns, three interceptions, completed fourth quarter comebacks in the NFC Championship and Super Bowl, which L.A. won 23-20 over the Bengals.

No matter what happened after that, the Rams have won their argument: They won the Super Bowl immediately after the trade. Despite going 5-12 the season after with what many described as “paying the bill” for their aggressive moves, McVay and Stafford are right back in the thick of the NFC playoff picture with an offense that is arguably better than the 2021 team. Nate Tice of Yahoo! Sports called the “the most advanced” version of the Rams offense yet:

Yes, (the Rams) finished among the upper echelon of NFL offenses in 2023. The Rams’ 5.6 yards per play was tied for sixth with the Dallas Cowboys. Their 43.4% offensive success rate was eighth, a few good plays behind the Lions. They ranked fourth in weighted offensive DVOA, three spots ahead of the Lions offense.

Saying that the Rams were “fleeced” will never trump saying that they won the Super Bowl.

How It’s Working for the Lions

It’s not just rare for there to be any true “win-win” trades, it’s much harder to find examples of a even deals in which one of the two teams won the Super Bowl and it’s still seen as a win for both sides. That appears to what we have in the Stafford-Goff trade, especially because now people do acknowledge that Jared Goff was also in the deal.

It was speculated that the Rams had to include a first round pick just to get Detroit to agree to take his contract but now Goff is proving to be more than a “throw in”. He’s a top-tier throw-er.

The rebuilding of Jared Goff’s career got off to a rough start, as the Lions went 3-13-1 in his first season and then the Lions were constantly linked to quarterbacks in the last two drafts. But as he got more time with offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, Goff kept improving and recently he looks to actually be the most important piece that Detroit got back in return for Stafford.

Goff has been more than a game manager, he’s been reliable, and rumors of his ouster have turned into expectations for a new lucrative contract extension in 2024. One that will be much bigger than the one that was reportedly such an overpay that the Rams had to give up a first round pick to get rid of it.

This season, he ranked second in yards, fourth in touchdowns, ninth in both passer rating and QBR, and he threw the most first down passes in the NFL.

The Lions also won their division for the first time in 30 years and will be hosting his former team in the wild card round as the three-seed. In that way, Goff has actually surpassed Stafford in Detroit at the same time that Stafford has surpassed what Goff did in L.A..

The Draft Picks

The two most-prominent Lions players that resulted from draft picks acquired in the trade are rookies Jahmyr Gibbs and Sam LaPorta. Because of the Rams 5-12 season, they ended up trading the sixth overall pick in 2023, which Holmes used to trade down with the Cardinals in exchange for multiple picks. The Lions used the first of those on Gibbs, the running back who finished third in the NFL in yards per carry among running backs and had over 1,200 total yards and 11 touchdowns.

The next was used on LaPorta, the rookie tight end who finished fifth at his position in receiving yards and scored 10 touchdowns, tied for the fourth-most in the entire NFL.

Other picks acquired because of the trade include:

WR Jameson Williams, the Lions traded up from 32 (the 2022 first round pick acquired from LA) to 12 to select Williams, but injuries and a gambling suspension have slowed the start of his career
S Ifeatu Melifonwu, the Lions have given him increased playing time recently and he just had the first two interceptions of his career in Week 16 and Week 17
DT Brodric Martin, another pick acquired when the Rams traded down in 2023, Martin has been more of a reserve, depth player so far

If all the Lions ever get out of the trade is Goff, LaPorta, and Gibbs, it’s hard to argue with that as anything but a great return for Stafford, especially because he asked to leave. And while any team would like LaPorta and Gibbs on their roster, most would take Williams, and Goff is an upgrade to at least half of the league, the Rams are also happier with Stafford.

That’s a rare win-win. But this wild card game is guaranteed to be a win-lose.