For years, Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay hasn’t hidden that he regrets the way he handled the team’s decision to trade quarterback Jared Goff to the Detroit Lions in March 2021 via a deal that landed the Rams reigning Most Valuable Player Matthew Stafford.
During a recent appearance on the “Bussin’ With The Boys” podcast, McVay again expressed regret regarding how that situation played out years ago.
Sean McVay was “an amateur” in his handling of the Jared Goff-Matthew Stafford trade
“I’m super sensitive to what an amateur I was with the Goff situation, you know, trading him,” McVay explained, per Pro Football Network. “You want to talk about lack of courage, lack of clarity, lack of ability to be able to look somebody in the eye that you’ve had a lot of really cool experiences with and tell them, ‘Hey, you know, not easy to say, but we might explore an opportunity to acquire Matthew Stafford, and you’ll be a part of a trade there.’ But instead, you kind of get frustrated, and it was more really about me than it was ever him [in] terms of like I had a lot of things that I needed to be able to work through, and I didn’t handle that the right way.”
Back in January 2021, a report emerged claiming the relationship between McVay and Goff was “not great.” McVay has since acknowledged on multiple occasions that he wishes he had handled Goff’s departure “better as a leader.”
As for Goff, he previously said that the trade left him with a “chip on his shoulder” and feeling “betrayed.” This past season, he suggested he has now put such emotions behind him.
Sean McVay would handle the Jared Goff trade differently if able to do it again
“Well, I was frustrated,” McVay added about the Goff trade. “Did I ever have the courage to really sit him down after that season in 2020 and really tell him, ‘Hey, you know, there’s a possibility that we’ll explore, you know, some avenues that might lead to you not being our quarterback moving forward,’ No. Would I do it differently now? Absolutely.”
Of course, the trade worked out quite well for McVay and Co., as Stafford helped the Rams win Super Bowl LVI in February 2022. While the Lions signed Goff to a four-year contract extension that reportedly included $170M guaranteed and a no-trade clause in the spring of 2024, he has yet to play in a Super Bowl with his current employer.
