Lions coach accept the trade deal of $217M
Lions timetable for Jared Goff: from Stafford trade to $217 million agreement
DETROIT: Jared Goff felt the chill of the chilly Michigan air. The former quarterback for the Los Angeles Rams has just gotten off a plane from California in March of 2021. A few days earlier, Goff was traded to the Detroit Lions by the Rams in exchange for veteran quarterback Matthew Stafford. Historians noted that this was the first time since the common draft era that two No. 1 draft picks (Goff in 2016 and Stafford in 2009) had been exchanged for one another. Goff saw the transfer as an opportunity for atonement. His star had faded in Los Angeles, even though he had led the Rams to a Super Bowl berth in his third season. He was fired because to disagreements with coach Sean McVay and a startling tendency for turnovers.
When Goff arrived, Detroit seemed like a football equivalent of Siberia. In the Super Bowl era, the team had only won one playoffs game (in the 1991 season), and it had not had a quarterback win multiple playoff games in a season since the 1950s. However, Goff left that trip unfazed by the past or the difficult path ahead. “Goff stated in January that he saw this as a chance to establish his own legacy and to be involved from the beginning of something great, which we can ideally develop into something even more exceptional than it is now.”
Goff has accomplished just that in the last three years. He became just the third quarterback in Lions history to win multiple postseason games in a season, following in the footsteps of Tobin Rote (1957) and Bobby Layne (1953, 1952). He was one victory away from leading the team to its first Super Bowl berth. Along the way, the Lions defeated Stafford and the Rams in a boisterous wild-card game at Ford Field, the team’s first postseason triumph in almost 30 years. Goff, who was awarded a four-year, $212 million agreement this offseason, now gets ready to face Stafford and the Rams once more on Sunday night (8:20 p.m. ET, NBC). He and the Lions feel that Goff can lead the team.