The LA Rams’ “Matthew Stafford Package” is now a thing

While the LA Rams did not start the offseason intending to be trend-setters, that is the turn they’ve taken. After all, pulling together playoff-winning quarterback and first-round picks will turn some heads, but you never know what will happen next, do you?

Well, it made an impact. How can you tell? You know you have made an impact on the market when they start naming stuff after you. And courtesy of the LA Rams’ recent whiz-bang trade, a new term has been introduced into the NFL lexicon, known as  (drum roll, please)  “The Matthew Stafford Package.”

It’s kinda like the Herschel Walker Minnesota Vikings & Dallas Cowboys trade of yesteryear. That deal became synonymous in the NFL for any trade that included a boatload of future draft picks for one player.  In 2021, The Matthew Stafford Package not only set the bar but also raised the bar. And yup, it’s actually a thing now, a bona fide phrase.

The Matthew Stafford Package is what the Detroit Lions managed to claw out of the Rams in exchange for  QB Jared Goff, or two first-round picks, a third-round pick, and a very successful and playoff winning quarterback.

It’s the tide that raised all the boats in the harbor. And for NFL GMs intent on wheeling, dealing, and making trades go down, it’s the new benchmark, the straw that stirs the drink.

No doubt, the Rams bet the farm on this wager, betting on the come. . .  and some might even say mortgaged their football future, ala Herschel Walker.

Bootylicious

The booty, the lube that swung this deal for the Rams might also be described as “a tidy sum,” “a pretty penny”, “Solomon’s gold”, “Mother Lode”, Treasure chest”, or even “a king’s ransom.”

And most Rams fans would agree, it was, indeed a king’s ransom to pay the Detroit Lions for QB Matthew Stafford.

So now, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, Philadelphia Eagle GM Howie Roseman wants a king’s ransom for QB Carson Wentz,  nothing less than a Matthew Stafford Package.

The Indianapolis Colts and Chicago Bears are the most likely suitors to pony up that kind of a deal, and also according to Schefter, such a trade “could happen as early as this week.”

King’s ransom, eh? While that phrase in modern-day usage has come to simply denote any extremely large amount of money, once upon a time in the early Middle Ages, it referred to an actual sum – the amount required to obtain the freedom of a king who was held as a prisoner.

You see, in medieval warfare, each participant had a price on their head – the richer and more influential the person you captured, the more money or ransom could be obtained to secure their release. Of course, kings were the wealthiest and therefore, the most prized.

On the gridiron, the quarterback is king and every Sunday, the modern-day equivalent of medieval warfare plays out anew.

Money talks

Delving into the financials, (assuming such a deal would take place and Philadelphia Eagles GM Howie Roseman gets his asking price) the Philadelphia Eagles would swallow a dead-money cap hit of $33.8 million next year if they dealt (unloaded) Wentz before March 19.

Just as the Rams were forced to eat a $22 million dead cap hit from quarterback Jared Goff on the Matthew Stafford Package.

The fact that the rest of the NFL world is now bandying about the term speaks volumes. The Rams have swung for the fences, no longer content to just make contact and hit singles. They are all in, going for it.

An NFL general manager can now say “I want a Matthew Stafford Package” and both sides immediately know what are the stakes on the table. Whether that’s good or bad, remains to be seen as the results of this blockbuster trade will ultimately play out on the field. For the Rams, nothing less than a home-field Super Bowl at So-Fi will suffice, and they have served notice to the rest of the NFL by conceiving, hammering out, and signing-on-the-bottom-line on “The Matthew Stafford Package”.

For now, it’s just kinda cool to know that the Rams are not resting on any laurels. They are blazing new trails. . .  and birthing new vocabulary phrases for today’s NFL.