The LAST Matthew Stafford trade take you'll need to read
The LAST Matthew Stafford trade take you'll need to read
Also, this is a really big year for the QBs from the 2016 draft class, which includes alumni like Jared Goff and Dak Prescott
The future of the Rams depends on Matthew Stafford
Jared Goff was not the answer in Los Angeles. Sure, he looked the part in stretches. His stellar 2018, now standing as an unavoidable outlier, saw him play at MVP-adjacent levels en route to an NFC title. But those big performances shrank under the spotlight of the playoffs, where his passing game cratered and the Rams’ regular season momentum skidded to a halt. The growth he’d shown in 2017 and ‘18 tapered off. His ceiling as a Ram was evident.
So the Rams did something about it. LA was lost in salary cap hell with a win-now roster that had, for the past three seasons, been derailed by mediocre quarterbacking in crucial moments. In a minor upset, the team sent a handsome ransom Detroit’s way to land a passer who’s led the league in game-winning drives in three of the last seven seasons.
Matthew Stafford will get the chance to prove his lack of postseason success was the Lions’ problem and not his. Rams coach Sean McVay will get the chance to prove his field-stretching offense can still be devastating under the proper big-armed quarterback. And Los Angeles will get the chance to show the rest of the league a contender can be built from free agent pickups, expensive trades, and almost no homegrown first-round picks.
This is a wild one; let’s take a closer look.
This is a short-term win for the Rams, even if they’re screwed in the long run
General manager Les Snead is nothing if not bold. After starting his run in St. Louis with four years of Jeff Fisher’s 7-9 bullshit, he’s been embracing risk in a way few of his peers have matched. That’s been good — taking a flier on Sean McVay’s bold offensive philosophy, drafting Todd Gurley in the first round after he’d suffered a season-ending knee injury. And bad — signing Goff to a $136 million extension in 2019 rather than letting him play out Year 4 of his rookie contract, drafting Greg Robinson and Tavon Austin with top 10 picks.
This may be his biggest swing yet. Adding Stafford means that, barring a trade back up the draft board, Snead’s Rams will go from 2017 to 2023 without a first-round selection. This is a massive risk from a franchise that’s taken a litany of mid-round picks the past four years and turned them into a handful of solid starters — Cooper Kupp, Sebastian Joseph-Day, Samson Ekubam — but no one who’s been invited to a Pro Bowl or All-Pro team.
Instead of relying on unreliable returns, LA is investing in proven commodities. They’ve sold off four first-round picks for Jalen Ramsey and Matthew Stafford the past two seasons. And it makes sense!
The Rams fielded the league’s top defense in terms of points allowed and yards gained, but still barely put a dent in the NFC side of the playoffs thanks to Football Outsiders’ 20th-ranked passing offense. While Goff’s thumb injury played a part in that failure, it’s clear LA’s brass wasn’t happy with him even when healthy. Stafford brings an immediate upgrade who, despite playing more than a decade in the league, will only be 33 years old next season.
Stafford played with worse receivers, got pressured and blitzed roughly the same amount as the Rams’ quarterbacks, attempted deeper throws, and still had a passer rating six points higher than Goff’s while throwing for more touchdowns and fewer interceptions. This all leads to one massive question ...
Is Stafford *really* gonna be the difference maker the Rams need?
LA needed someone who can add an extra level to its offense. With Deshaun Watson way out of its price range and no first-round pick in 2021, Stafford was as good as McVay could hope to find moving forward.
But is renaissance Matthew Stafford significantly better than newfound Lions QB Jared Goff?
The biggest difference between them is Goff spent the last three seasons dialing back his big throws — his average pass traveled 8.7 yards downfield in 2018’s breakthrough, then 7.7 in 2019 and only 6.6 in 2020 (32nd among 35 qualified QBs). Stafford led the league in average pass distance in 2019, clocking in at 10.6 yards (only he and Jameis Winston broke the 10-yard barrier) and falling back to a fifth-best 8.7 YPA in a year when his top wideout played only five games.
That’s massively valuable for a head coach whose approach hinges on vertical routes to open up the rest of his offense. Adding a bonafide field-stretcher won’t just mean boons for Kupp and Woods, but also create newfound space in the box for tailback Cam Akers, who finished his rookie season on a heater.
The Rams also hope Stafford will unlock second-year wideout Van Jefferson’s potential as a downfield threat. The former SEC star didn’t see the field much as a rookie, but his Senior Bowl tape painted him as one of the fastest prospects of 2020. He’ll have an upgraded role this fall, and his straight-line speed will give him the opportunity to replace the kind of big-play explosiveness McVay coaxed out of Brandin Cooks in that NFC title run.
That said, Goff’s career averages look pretty damn similar to Stafford’s:
There’s some very real risk here, even when you consider Stafford’s superior ability to push the ball downfield.
Snead and McVay are making the statement Goff’s recent slide was irreversible and that they can’t institute their best offense with him in the lineup. They also save money by escaping the impressively unnecessary contract extension to which they’d signed the former NFC champion in 2019. But Stafford isn’t cheap, and now the Rams have to clear $30 million from their books in 2021 just to meet this year’s salary cap. They’ve got more money tied up in 2022 contracts than any team but the Vikings, and are slated to have little spending room in 2023 and 2024, per Over the Cap. That’s an untenable way to build an NFL roster, and typically the safest cantilever is to strike gold in the draft … and Los Angeles isn’t scheduled to make a first-round selection until America’s next election year.
Let’s talk about what Stafford’s getting out of this deal
It’s also a win for Stafford, who escapes a rebuild in Detroit and avoids the one franchise for whom he had no interest in playing:
Weird flex, but it makes sense. New England has trash wideouts and tight ends and also Matt Patricia, who didn’t endear himself to the Lions’ locker room in two-plus years of failure. Anyway!
The soon-to-be 33-year-old will go from a prominent, but aging and injured receiving corps with the Lions (Marvin Jones, Kenny Golladay) to a stacked lineup of wideouts in Los Angeles. Stafford will get the chance to sling passes to a younger, healthier 1-2 punch in Cooper Kupp and Robert Woods. While the useful Josh Reynolds will likely depart as a free agent, Jefferson can absorb his targets and likely match (or, the Rams hope, exceed) his production.
He also gets to relaunch his career under Sean McVay’s pass-heavy offense — a role in which he’s thrived in the past. Goff averaged 580 passes per season under McVay, including a league-high 626 in 2019. Stafford has averaged 604 attempts per 16 games in his career, and while he hasn’t been as prolific as he was in his mid-20s, he was on pace for more than 580 passes and 5,000 passing yards before getting hurt in 2019.
There’s evidence that suggests Stafford isn’t far removed from his peak, and might even climb to new heights in an offense built to play to his strengths. Per PFF’s rankings, he moves from the 13th-ranked offensive line in the league to the third, an upgrade that should buy him enough extra time to cultivate the long-range passing game McVay loves to see. More importantly, he’ll go from a team that hadn’t made it to the playoffs since 2016 to one that’s been three times in the past four years (and would have been four-for-four had the NFL instituted a seven-team playoff field before 2019).
***
This is a career-defining moment for Stafford and Goff, but the real risk of this deal falls on the Rams’ general manager and head coach. If McVay can’t prove his system remains ahead of the curve with an upgrade at quarterback, his days in LA may be numbered. If Snead’s latest swing fails to bring postseason glory, his legacy may be creating the league’s least appealing GM job for his eventual successor. There’s a lot riding on Matthew Stafford.
That’s not what you want to hear about a player with zero playoff wins in 12 seasons as a pro. Stafford gets the chance to rewrite that legacy starting now. The future of the Rams hinges on it. — CD
2021 Pro Bowl report!
I didn’t watch it. — CD
2021 is a big year for the 2016 QB draft class
Fifteen quarterbacks were selected in the 2016 NFL Draft, the most in any year since 2005. That QB class is also a strong argument for quality in its perpetual battle with quantity:
The 2020 season was particularly rough for those who remained from that group. Let’s take a quick look at the seven fifth-year quarterbacks who took snaps in a game this past season.
Goff: The best you could say about Goff’s overall play in 2020 is that it was average. And after another year of questionable decision-making from the former No. 1 pick, the Rams dumped Goff and his expensive salary off to the Lions.
Wentz: He had career lows in every statistical category, except for the bad ones — interceptions and sacks taken were both career highs. In fact, his league-high 15 picks came in just 12 games because he was benched for rookie Jalen Hurts.
Prescott: The Cowboys refused to lock down Prescott, giving him the franchise tag and lowballing him on a potential extension. Then, for the first time in his career, Prescott suffered a major injury that forced him to miss games. His season ended in Week 5 due to a fractured ankle, and now he’s set to be a free agent.
Brissett: The Colts’ 2019 starter played in 11 games in 2020 as Philip Rivers’ backup, but he was used sparingly. Mostly, Brissett was brought in for QB sneaks and Hail Mary passes (he attempted just eight throws). He’ll be a free agent for the first time this offseason.
Sudfeld: The Eagles’ third-string quarterback was why everyone accused Doug Pederson of tanking in Week 17.
Allen: He went 1-4 for the Bengals in place of the injured Joe Burrow and finished with a 0.0 passer rating in the final game of the season.
Driskel: He appeared in three games for Denver, completing just 54.7 percent of his passes. He’s also one of the reasons the Broncos infamously had to start a practice squad wide receiver at quarterback that one time.
While Sudfeld, Allen, and Driskel have hit their ceiling as paycheck-collecting backups (no judgment: nice work if you can get it), there’s still hope for the other four as they head into a pivotal 2021 season.
Jared Goff
Goff is only two years removed from his best season in the league, when he actually aired it out (8.4 yards/attempt, 32 touchdown passes) and led the Rams to the Super Bowl. Despite his lackluster 2020, Goff still had his moments. After undergoing surgery for a broken thumb, he came off the bench less than two weeks later to help the Rams beat the Seahawks in the playoffs and then played relatively well in the Divisional Round loss to the Packers. Now that he’s out of a relationship that turned toxic, he has a chance to start over at just 26 years old. The Lions will probably be in rebuilding mode, but they’ll have a few good weapons (D’Andre Swift, T.J. Hockenson, maybe Kenny Golladay) for Goff to grow with in Detroit.
Carson Wentz
Speaking of toxic QB-coach relationships, Wentz won the power struggle with Doug Pederson. The Eagles surprisingly fired Pederson a week after Black Monday, and three seasons after he won a Super Bowl. Wentz has a pricy contract and, not coincidentally, seems to have a ton of support from the front office. Maybe new coach Nick Sirianni, who is not ruling out an open QB competition, can stop Wentz’s regression and unlock the guy who was a legit MVP candidate in 2017 before he tore his ACL. Or maybe Wentz, like Goff, will end up getting a fresh start elsewhere. It’s less likely now that Pederson is gone, but it’s also still possible.
Dak Prescott
Prescott has been the top quarterback from this draft class, and he’s also the only one of the three starters who hasn’t been signed to a long-term contract. Jerry Jones is adamant he’s committed to Prescott, but we’ve heard that enough times to remain skeptical. Still, Prescott’s absence confirmed just how vital he is to the Cowboys, who could’ve cruised to the NFC East title if he had been healthy all season. Before he got hurt, Prescott was playing like a guy on a prove-it deal, which the franchise tag kinda is. There’s no reason to doubt he’ll bounce back from his injury. The Cowboys could finally reward Prescott for his steady play with a big-money contract, give him the franchise tag again (for $37.69 million), or let him hit free agency. If he does, some team will snatch him up, and pay him what he’s worth, in a flash.
Jacoby Brissett
In 2019, Brissett didn’t play as poorly as you might have thought. He was putting up some of the best numbers in the league until his midseason knee injury, and when he returned, he just wasn’t the same player. The Colts then signed Rivers in free agency, sending Brissett back to the No. 2 job.
Brissett is a quality backup who could play if a team needed him to, but the big question is if he’s good enough to be a full-time starter. Now that he’s a free agent, Brissett might get a chance to prove that, depending on where he signs. New England, the team that originally drafted him, is one option. He could potentially start there, even if it’s as a bridge quarterback. And if Brissett joins a team that already has an established quarterback, he’d still be an upgrade over a lot of teams’ current backup situations. — SH