It was 6:45 p.m. in Los Angeles and 9:45 p.m. in Detroit when the Rams and Lions jumped on a six-way FaceTime call and, true to 2020 form (even if it is 2021), there were technical difficulties. L.A. inner-circlers Kevin Demoff, Les Snead and Tony Pastoors were apart and in their own separate boxes on the screen, while the Detroit brass of Rod Wood, Brad Holmes and Mike Disner were gathered together in a meeting room on their phones.
As you might imagine, the group setting on one end of Saturday night’s megadeal was causing consternation—via an annoying echo created by Lions voices showing up on each other’s phones—on the other end of the call.
“Mute your mic!” said one of the guys in California.
Appropriate, given the teams were about create the first mic-dropping moment of an offseason that’s coming with the promise of quarterbacking chaos.
Minutes later, the deal was done. Matthew Stafford got what he wanted. Sean McVay got what he wanted. And the Lions, in an admittedly rebuilding posture, walked away with a massive haul. First-round picks in 2022 and ‘23. A third-round pick in 2021. Likely starting quarterback for next fall, Jared Goff. A new, fresh start for Holmes and Campbell.
Meanwhile, once the deal was agreed to, some 1,100 miles south of L.A., McVay and Stafford were sitting down for dinner to celebrate a fresh start of their own, near the Chileno Bay Resort in Los Cabos, Mexico, with Stafford’s wife Kelly and McVay’s fiancé Veronika. The coach and his new quarterback happened to be among a number of NFL people in Cabo last week—Saints coach Sean Payton and QB Drew Brees, Rams LT Andrew Whitworth and others were nearby, too, over the last few days.
A wild coincidence, to be sure, in a really wild few days that landed Stafford in his preferred new destination and McVay his preferred new quarterback. For both, there are things that they’re letting go of. Stafford’s saying goodbye to the only professional home he’s known in his 12 years in the NFL. McVay’s bidding farewell to a 26-year-old quarterback, in Goff, he built around during his first four years as a head coach, and grew a great appreciation for.
All the same, under the moon in Mexico, this was a time for everyone to embrace what’s ahead. As you might imagine, for those at the table, there was a lot to look forward to.
***
If it seems like the early stages of Super Bowl week just got hijacked, well, that’s because that’s exactly what happened. Which is why this isn’t the way I’d normally lead the MMQB column the Sunday heading into Super Bowl week. But here we are, and here’s what you’ll find inside the first February MMQB …
• The top storylines for Super Bowl week (and what would’ve been my lede here if not for Saturday’s trade).
• The completion of Ron Rivera’s journey back from cancer.
• Arthur Smith’s acclimation into Atlanta.
• Highlights from Senior Bowl week.
And a lot more on——the QB carousel that’s starting to spin. Which, of course, is where we’re going to begin.
***
The Matthew Stafford sweepstakes lasted, in essence, seven days. And while the Lions certainly had the idea that they wanted it to happen quickly in the back of their minds—to get ahead of quarterbacks potentially flooding the market and bending the supply/demand curve, or Deshaun Watson turning Stafford into a consolation prize—there was no telling how quickly things would materialize.
They got their answer quickly, with interest rising fast in a quarterback that the NFL was resoundingly, if implicitly, endorsing as a star with the way the market for his services exploded.
Detroit, really, had been set up for this for a while. Stafford made his desires known to owner Sheila Ford Hamp and president Rod Wood the day after the season ended, and it was on the mind of the Lions brass as the group went through interviewing GM and coaching candidates. In fact, it was one area in which Holmes, who worked under Snead and helped evaluate Goff in 2016, distinguished himself.
In Holmes’s first interview with Detroit, he explained the process of picking Goff, and how the Rams had decided to take him over Carson Wentz five years ago. Back for a second interview, after being apprised of the situation with Stafford, rather that recoil, his excitement reverberated—not to move the team off Stafford, but for how he’d handle such a big-ticket situation, from getting value for the quarterback to finding his replacement.
Little did he know how soon all of it would come into play.
News of Stafford’s availability emerged two Saturdays ago, which is part of why the Lions figured dispatching Disner and Holmes to Mobile for the Senior Bowl—where they could meet with other teams—would be smart. The two came back late in the week with multiple teams willing to throw a first-round pick in the ring.
Word was that Stafford’s preferred destinations were, in order, the Rams, Niners and Colts. And while the Lions were always going to do what was best for the Lions (and Stafford didn’t have a no-trade clause to commandeer the process), they were also cognizant of what their former No. 1 pick wanted.
By the time things started to come to a boiling point, the Lions had an initial offer from the Rams (their 2022 first-rounder, Goff, and an additional pick) that wasn’t going to cut it. But it was that interest from the Rams—and that it became public on Friday night, via a report from ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler—that prompted a frenzy to land Stafford. By Saturday, the market had crystallized.
• Both Washington and Carolina had offered their first-round picks and then some. The Panthers’ first-rounder is eighth (that wound up being the highest pick offered) and their proposal came with a later pick. Washington packaged a third-round pick with the 19th pick.
• The Colts discussed packages of picks and players, but never actually wound up offering their first-rounder, the 21st pick.
• The Niners talked to the Lions in Mobile, but at the time were a little lukewarm and never made an official offer. They’d planned to circle back with Detroit after the weekend, but when things escalated Saturday and the Lions called back, the price had gone beyond what they were willing to offer (in part because they’re fine going forward with Jimmy Garoppolo). My sense is the 12th pick was never going to be offered.
• The Broncos discussed a pick swap with the Lions that would have equated to a late first-round pick, but it wound up becoming clear to Denver that they weren’t playing in the neighborhood where this was going.
• The Patriots and Bears both checked in. New England was willing to package a second-rounder with a player to get Stafford, which, when added to the Patriots’ absence on a list of preferred destinations (something my buddy Tom Curran reported on Sunday) quickly eliminated Bill Belichick & Co. from the chase.
• And finally, late Friday, the Jets checked in. The Lions circled back with New York on Saturday, but talks didn’t go very far.
That gave the Lions more than a quarter of the NFL in on the Stafford Derby—again, indicating just what the NFL thinks of No. 9. It also gave Hamp, Wood and Disner the knowledge that they’d accomplish a goal of theirs by giving Holmes the ammo to do what’s at the heart of what got him into that GM chair, and that’s evaluating college players, maximizing draft picks and, ultimately, building a strong, younger roster as a result.
Anyway, by midday on Saturday, Washington and Carolina had emerged as the favorites to land Stafford, and the Lions came to the realization that a deal could be in the offing. But if they’d guessed at that point where Stafford was going, they’d have probably been wrong.
***
It’s been two weeks since the Rams were eliminated from the NFC playoffs in the divisional round, and the way the season ended left plenty for interpretation. Goff was injured in Week 16, missed the team’s Week 17 game, then came off the bench after John Wolford started in his place in the wild-card round. Snead and McVay declining to commit to Goff as their 2021 starter turned heads, for sure, and provided a clue.
While the Rams were fine going forward with Goff and Wolford as their quarterbacks, just two years after signing Goff to a four-year, $134 million extension, the team was also very open to taking advantage of the expected unprecedented quarterback movement to come.
This, really, is who the Rams have become since returning to L.A. five years ago. For better or worse, there’s been absolutely no fear to flip draft capital for established stars, a trend that actually started right after the team flipped a group of picks to move up in the draft and land Goff himself. And with uncertainty over whether Watson or others would be available later in the winter, the Rams homed in on Stafford.
But talking about it was always going to be a lot easier than pulling it off. The Rams’ deal with Goff was, for the most part, ironclad for the next two years—$43 million of the $54.3 million he’s due is fully guaranteed with no offset language (meaning his signing with another team offered no relief)—making what was necessary in getting Stafford (shedding Goff) complicated. In essence, absent finding a taker for the deal, cutting Goff before paying him the $54.3 million over the next two years would have meant paying out the $43 million.
That forced the Rams to be flexible with the Lions, who had the aforementioned strong offers, but really did like the idea of getting a legitimate starting quarterback for Dan Campbell out of the deal. Making it even tougher was the fact the Rams didn’t have a first-round pick, their 2021 slot gone as the last piece of the Jalen Ramsey trade, which only gave the Lions impetus to ask for more.
Two things worked to buoy the Rams’ interest, and the first was McVay’s personal drive to get the deal done.
Along those lines, McVay was the one who called Rams owner Stan Kroenke on Saturday to sign off on the team going the extra mile to get it done, spurred by some extra tape work he and Snead did. That work only cemented what McVay loved about Stafford already—how quickly he processes, his pocket movement, his play urgency, his ability to throw off platform or in rhythm and his tough, fearless style—which pushed Snead into the mode where he was going into the afternoon with the intention of getting a deal done.
The second thing was that everyone the Rams asked loved and believed in Stafford. And that wound up including McVay himself, who happened to have a casual friendship with him. McVay is buddies with Bills receivers coach Chad Hall, from the days when the two were star high school quarterbacks in the Atlanta area (McVay at Marist, Hall at Wesleyan), and Hall’s sister happens to be … Kelly Hall Stafford.
Before this week, the Stafford-McVay relationship wasn’t a whole lot more than saying hello and maybe hanging out a little before games and at events. But it was enough for the Rams to match what they were hearing on Stafford with McVay’s own experience.
So, really, as afternoon turned to night on Saturday in Detroit, the Lions’ brass stayed in the office, and kept Hamp fully abreast of the situation—a deal most certainly could happen.
***
On paper, the return looks a little wild. But the Rams’ perspective on the deal was a little different than most.
First, as they saw it, if the first-round picks wind up being in the 20s (or later), then they’d have given up about what, on a points basis, Carolina was offering with the eighth overall pick. The old Jimmy Johnson draft value chart puts the eighth pick at 1,400 points, making it equal to two 26th overall picks (700 each). And getting a clean break on Goff, and offloading his deal, rather than having to smoke out suitors under duress was a big benefit.
The third-rounder they’re giving up this year, interestingly enough, they’ll essentially get back as a comp pick for the Lions’ hire of Holmes.
And Snead’s department has found a way to dig out guys like Cam Akers, Van Jefferson, Cooper Kupp, John Johnson, Taylor Rapp, Samson Ebukam, Gerald Everett, Jordan Fuller, Darious Williams, and Sebastian Joseph-Day outside the first round over the last few years. Of course, with a top-heavy salary structure, and no first-rounders the next three years, it’s going to be more essential to do it now than ever. But the Rams have shown they can.
With all this in mind, the Rams’ front office moved forward, knowing that, at the very least, it had to beat a current-year top-10 pick to get Stafford. As the group worked on it, a couple things came up. One was that Brees and Aaron Rodgers had only been to one Super Bowl apiece, Russell Wilson hadn’t been back to the NFC title game in five years and Ben Roethlisberger had only gone that far once since his last Super Bowl, 10 years ago. Another was a stat that a member of the brass saw on social media.
Both things reinforced, to everyone in the room, how hard it is to win in the NFL, and how important it is, when you have a team you think is capable of making to the top, to give it every chance—even if that means walking away from a quarterback who’s second in wins to Tom Brady over the last four years (Goff is, with 42).
And in the weird circumstances of 2020, it meant Snead, Demoff, and Pastoors getting the deal done over FaceTime, out of the office and in different spots outside of L.A., with McVay hunting down his new quarterback to celebrate in Mexico in the aftermath.
So Stafford’s a Ram, under contract for the next two years at a relative bargain price of $43 million, and set to turn 33 on Super Bowl Sunday, and the message this sends to all of his soon-to-be-teammates couldn’t be clearer: The brain trust believes the team is ready to win very big and win very big right now.
Maybe it’ll work, and Stafford will be holding a trophy a year from now. Maybe it won’t, and the roster will be in ruins a couple years down the line, cap-strapped and bereft of young talent.
Either way, this mic-dropping moment for the Rams will echo for years to come.
