Revisiting the Lions’ Jared Goff, Matthew Stafford trade: How do the QBs compare two years later?

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When the Rams sent Jared Goff to the Lions in the 2021 trade that landed them quarterback Matthew Stafford, hardly anyone blinked an eye. In fact, plenty wondered why Detroit would even bother with Goff at all; the Rams were making a clear upgrade, many posited, while the Lions were simply inheriting the necessary evil that was Goff’s contract, in order to facilitate the deal.

Two and a half seasons later, Stafford remains with the Rams, and Goff remains with the Lions. But the “winner” of their trade seems less clear. While Stafford’s addition instantly elevated Los Angeles’ offense in 2021, ultimately helping Sean McVay and Co. hoist the Lombardi Trophy, Goff now has Detroit positioned as one of the powers of the NFC, and his future in Motor City might be even more secure than that of Stafford on the West Coast.

Let’s revisit the deal that swapped the QBs, plus how Goff and Stafford have fared in total since landing in their new homes:

The trade
Lions received:

QB Jared Goff, 2022 first-round pick, 2023 first-round pick, 2021 third-round pick

Rams received:

QB Matthew Stafford

When the Rams executed this deal in 2021, just two years after signing Goff to a $134 million extension, it was rightly perceived as an effort to claim an instant title, giving McVay a more prolific gunslinger despite Goff helping the Rams advance to the Super Bowl in 2018. The Lions, meanwhile, appeared to be prepping for a total reset, with much of the focus on the draft picks acquired in the deal. General manager Brad Holmes claimed Goff was more than just a “bridge” QB — an apparent throwaway in the move — but many declined to take him at his word, expecting the Lions to pursue another longer-term QB.

Why the skepticism of Goff’s potential? For one, the lopsided nature of the deal reinforced the notion Goff was something of a “salary dump.” Goff had twice the number of career playoff starts (6) as Stafford (3) at the time of the swap, but the latter was widely regarded as the superior passer, eclipsing 4,000 yards eight different times over 12 years with the Lions. Goff, meanwhile, had visibly regressed from a 2018 Pro Bowl breakout, appearing skittish with an 88.1 rating and 29 picks from 2019-2020.

The numbers
QB GAMES RECORD YARDS TDS INTS YPA RATING
Matthew Stafford

34

18-16
9,043

59

32

7.7 94.0
Jared Goff

40

19-20-1
10,190

62

20

7.2 96.5
After two and a half seasons, this is a fairly close race on the surface. Both QBs have hovered around .500, and both have graded similarly in terms of total production, with Stafford pushing the ball downfield at a better rate and Goff controlling the ball at a better rate. That’s indicative of their respective personas, with Stafford often known for his big arm and Goff highlighted for his accuracy. The key omission, of course, is the playoff production; Goff has yet to appear in a postseason contest for the Lions, while Stafford went 4-0 during the Rams’ 2021 Super Bowl run, completing 70% of his throws with nine TDs and just three INTs.

That’s the first glaring example that, with this entire re-evaluation but Stafford in particular, it all comes back to 2021. We cannot strip Stafford of his numbers that year — 41 TDs, 17 INTs and a 102.9 QB rating to flirt with MVP consideration. And we certainly cannot strip Stafford of his playoff showcase, which had CBS Sports’ own Will Brinson arguing for the longtime Lions QB’s Hall of Fame potential. But if we isolate the numbers to just the last two seasons, since the start of 2022, it’s a different story:

QB GAMES RECORD YARDS TDS INTS YPA RATING
Matthew Stafford

17

6-11

4,157

18

15

7.2

84.8

Jared Goff

26

16-10

6,945

43

12

7.6

99.2

While Stafford’s numbers have fallen all the way back to Earth, just as vital here is the gap in games played. Availability has plagued the Rams’ Super Bowl-winning starter since, well, immediately following the Super Bowl victory. Since 2022, Goff has literally played a half-season more than his counterpart, and Stafford is still battling injuries midway through 2023.

The contracts
Money isn’t everything, but it’s not nothing when comparing QBs. Take, for example, the Browns, who are paying Deshaun Watson $46 million per year, or the seventh-most among all QBs, after trading away backup Joshua Dobbs, who’s now starring for the Vikings as an injury replacement and counts just $800K against the salary cap in 2023. Is one more sustainable than the other? Perhaps. But overpaying for subpar production can also hurt a team’s ability to assemble a playoff-caliber lineup. So here’s a look at how Stafford and Goff are being compensated:

QB FULL CONTRACT PER YEAR RANK
Matthew Stafford

4 years, $160M

$40M

10th
Jared Goff 4 years, $134M
$33.5M 13th
Not a huge difference here, in the big picture, but note that Stafford is tied with three others at the $40M annual price tag, making Goff more like the 16th-highest-paid at his position. Ironically, given the prior notions of Goff being a “salary dump” in 2021, Stafford was reportedly shopped around the NFL prior to the 2023 season, only for his contract to stunt outside interest.

The verdict
If anything, the trajectories of Goff and Stafford since their 2021 swap speaks to the importance of a QB’s setup. The Rams had an all-star lineup when they acquired Stafford, enabling the QB to follow in the footsteps of Tom Brady with the 2020 Buccaneers and take a talented roster over the top. And it worked; Stafford was anecdotally better than Goff in situational moments, showed off his big arm in the playoffs, and the Rams became world champions. For that alone, they can’t be faulted for the trade.

But the results since then raise additional questions: What’s more important in the NFL, reaching the promised land or building a sustainable contender? Are the two mutually exclusive? Until the Lions win it all, restoring championship glory to Detroit for the first time since the 1950s, the Rams simply can’t be considered “losers” in this deal. On the flip side, things change in a hurry in the NFL, and while the Rams pay for their short-sighted activity, discarding highly priced veterans while Stafford fields consistent questions about a potential injury-induced retirement, the Lions have to be feeling pretty good about their progress.

The knock on Goff has long been that he’s too dependent on a comfortable supporting cast, but we can see with Stafford that even Super Bowl-winning QBs require a degree of comfort. Not so unlike NFC North counterpart Kirk Cousins, Goff has remained one of the NFL’s steadiest starters, even without the big-game resume. And now he might finally have the coach and/or weapons to make a leap when it counts. So in the end, Stafford was a leap forward for the Rams in 2021. But in the grand scheme of things, he and Goff just don’t appear very apart in the QB landscape, and in fact probably belong in the same tier of signal-callers, beneath the few transcendent game-changers at the position.