The Los Angeles Rams shook the football world on Saturday morning. After the Rams advanced through the post-season three weeks ago and beat their divisions, the Seattle Seahawks, in the Wild Card Series, the Rams now have a new quarterback. The team sent Jared Goff to Detroit and sent him and three drafts to the Lions for veteran caller Matthew Stafford.
But Stafford was apparently not the first quarter the Rams asked about. According to Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times, the Rams called the Green Bay Packers to inquire about the possibility of acquiring Aaron Rodgers.
Apparently that conversation was extremely short.
When the Rams made a turn at Rodgers, the Packers apparently shot down any conversation quickly with little or no serious consideration. In Farmer’s words, the Packers were ‘determined’ not to move Rodgers, a sentiment that underscores team president Mark Murphy’s recent comments about the Packers in the foreseeable future.
It should come as no surprise that the Rams would be interested in Rodgers. After all, he is likely to win the AP MVP award for the 2020 season – which will be announced next Saturday at the NFL Honors. The Rams also saw Rodgers up close and personally watched as he shredded LA’s top defense in the Division Game. It should be equally surprising, however, that the Packers dislike him for letting him go for the same reasons, especially if the Rams insisted on making Goff part of the deal.
Instead, Rams general manager Les Snead and head coach Sean McVay turned to Matthew Stafford after Packers stopped any trade talks over Rodgers, which eventually culminated in Saturday’s trade deal. The Rams will send a draft third round game in 2021 and send the team’s first round to the Lions in 2022 and 2023 to swap Goff for Stafford.
The price for Stafford is mainly astronomical due to Goff’s contract, as the Rams apparently had to pick up extra drafts to drop Goff off at Detroit. Over the next two years, he will owe $ 43 million in guaranteed money, the first two new years for an agreement he signed before the 2019 season, to ensure the Lions have Goff’s starter in 2021, unless they another person can get for him.
Detroit points to a complete rebuild with this move, adding picks for a quarterback who has fallen significantly over the past two years after putting in excellent campaigns in his second and third NFL seasons. Stafford, meanwhile, give the Rams a proven veteran with a big arm that should fit nicely with McVay’s game-action-passing game. This is definitely a short-term upgrade for the Rams in that position, but how much of an upgrade can be discussed.
Aaron Rodgers? That would have been an incredible upgrade for LA. But the Packers apparently did not want that to happen at any cost.