Sean McVay says he now wishes he had handled the Jared Goff situation differently before the Rams traded for Matthew Stafford in January 2021, calling his own approach a failure of courage and clarity.
On the Bussin’ with the Boys podcast, McVay said he was “super sensitive to what an amateur I was with the Goff situation, you know, trading him,” and added, “I didn’t handle that the right way.” He said he did not sit Goff down after the 2020 season to tell him the Rams might explore options that could lead to a quarterback change, saying there was “nobody to blame but myself.”
McVay’s comments go back to one of the biggest moves in Lions history, a January 2021 trade that sent Stafford to Los Angeles for Goff, two first-round picks in 2022 and 2023, and a third-round pick. McVay acknowledged he was “frustrated” by how he handled the moment, saying, “Did I ever have the courage to sit him down after that season in 2020 and tell him, ‘Hey, there’s a possibility that we’ll explore some avenues that might lead to you not being our quarterback moving forward’? No.”
That trade changed both franchises. Stafford went on to lead the Rams to a Super Bowl, while Goff became the centerpiece of a Lions turnaround that took them to within 30 minutes of a Super Bowl appearance in 2024. Detroit followed that run with a 15-2 season, and Goff later signed a four-year, $212 million extension that has since been restructured.
McVay said he would act differently now, underscoring how the trade still hangs over the way the deal was made, not just the players it moved. The football outcome may have been clear enough by now, but McVay’s regret centers on the human side of it: the part where Goff, by his own account, was caught off guard.
