Jon Gruden ‘I thought it was player for player’ re: Goff Stafford trade

The LA Rams were on the hunt for new quarterback options the moment that the 2020 NFL season ended. Despite the camouflaged coach-speak about creating competition at the quarterback position, the message was loud and clear. Jared Goff was not returning to his starting role as the Rams quarterback for the 2021 NFL season.  Right or wrong, history will judge the decision more objectively than we can.

But one of the curious points of the trade was the reaction of Las Vegas head coach Jon Gruden when the news of the trade became public knowledge. He wasn’t surprised that the trade occurred at all. His initial thoughts when the trade was announced was that it was a player-for-player swap.

Why is his reaction that relevant two months after the trade occurred? Well, the takes about the Detroit Lions’ need to draft a quarterback in the 2021 NFL Draft have been overwhelmingly overdone.  So too have the points been overdone that the Rams had to overcompensate for the horrendous contract tied to QB Jared Goff.

The LA Rams, not the Detroit Lions, had to swallow the dead cap dollars of paying Jared Goff upfront money with his contract extension. We compared what a deal might look like and were on the same page as Coach Gruden. In the absence of any bidding war, the exchange of the quarterbacks between the two teams should have been nearly a player-for-player exchange.  What Stafford brings to the Rams in much better play under pressure, Goff turns back the calendar six years for the Lions.

Gruden’s reaction validates our original estimate of what the exchange would look like. So what changed?

Well, there was indeed a bidding war for the services of QB Matthew Stafford, and the compensation packages offered were incredibly premium priced. The Carolina Panthers placed quarterback Teddy Bridgewater, their 1st round pick (eighth overall) plus a fifth-rounder. The Denver Broncos reportedly offered the 2021 ninth-overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft and quarterback Drew Lock to Detroit.  The Washington Football Teams offered the 19th overall pick, a third-round pick, and an unnamed starting defensive player.

Against that level of compensation, the Rams were forced to up the ante. And they did. A 2021 third-round pick (101st overall), and the 2022 and 2023 first-round picks, plus Jared Goff.  With so much uncertainty over the 2021 NFL Draft, the Lions truly valued the future first-round picks of the Rams package.

If both the Rams and Lions are happy with the exchanged value, then it’s a win-win for both teams. And history will be the only true impartial judge of which team made the wiser decision.  But in the meantime, the discussion about the far poorer level of quarterback play of Goff that forced the Rams to kick in an additional first-round pick seems to be invalidated with Gruden’s reaction.

In the end, it seems that the LA Rams had their mind made up on needing quarterback Matthew Stafford on the Rams roster to succeed in 2021. So the Lions made them pay a premium price for the exchange. In the end, it was simply the Economics 101 rule: Supply versus Demand.