Albert Breer breaks down the the Matthew Stafford trade and what the future looks like for the Detroit Lions and the Los Angeles Rams.
Albert Breer breaks down the big trade between the Los Angeles Rams and Detroit Lions for Matthew Stafford and Jared Goff, why the Deshaun Watson situation in Houston may not be resolved any time soon, why teams may not be able to plan for their future at quarterback until the draft is over, why the Tampa Bay Buccaneers linebackers could be their key to victory, and if this is the best Super Bowl QB matchup ever. We also talk to former Super Bowl winning quarterback Trent Dilfer about the big matchup between Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes and what they saw from each of them early on. We wrap things up by looking at some prop bets in Fantasy with SI's fantasy analyst Michael Fabiano, and of course, the mailbag.
The following transcript is an excerpt from The Albert Breer Show Podcast. Listen to the full episode on podcast players everywhere or on SI.com.
Albert Breer: My first takeaway from the big news of the weekend that is non-Super Bowl related: The Los Angeles Rams trade two first-round picks, a third-round pick and quarterback Jared Goff to the Detroit Lions for Matthew Stafford. And this is one of those where, at least on the surface, it looks like a win-win-win. The Lions have been very honest with themselves about where they are. I think that's a good thing. They're giving themselves draft capital to rebuild with. They moved the asset that Stafford was early, which allowed them to get ahead of what could be a flooded quarterback market. We can argue until we're blue in the face over whether or not they should have taken the Panthers’ offer which was really good, including the eighth overall pick, or Washington's offer, which was a one and a three. The bottom line is they got really good value for Matthew Stafford. It's going to allow them to rebuild the team going forward, and Dan Campbell gets what he wanted. What Dan Campbell told the front office people in Detroit was: I want a quarterback that is more than a Band-Aid. I want a quarterback that I can compete with. So at the very least, I think he's got a capable bridge quarterback in Jared Goff, who can get him to the next quarterback. And Jared Goff gets a chance to prove himself now, instead of being in a place where he would have had to fight for his job if he had gone back to L.A. Now, he's going into a situation where he's the starter and he has a year or two to prove himself and reestablish who he is as a player and that he's more than just a creation of Sean McVay's offense. For McVay, for Stafford, I think this is a great marriage. I can tell you I think McVay believes that he's going to be able to unlock things within Stafford's game that we haven't seen from him before. In addition, he believes that Stafford is going to be able to bring some things out in his offense that we haven't seen before. And so for a team that is right in the Super Bowl window, and with a roster that's got the No. 1defense in the league, that's got blue-chip players like Jalen Ramsey and Aaron Donald in the midst of their prime, this is the sort of all-in move where I think you can see they feel like they're right on the cusp. They need a little extra to get over the hump. And we talked about that Mahomes effect last week. This is kind of addressing that, they need to get past Aaron Rodgers. They need to get past Tom Brady. They need to get past Patrick Mahomes to get to a championship. How do they do it? I think Matthew Stafford is a good enough quarterback to get you there. And I know some of the people in the general public don't think as highly of him. I think the NFL let us know loud and clear the way it feels about Matthew Stafford with the way that the last week, week and a half went, and the pursuit of Matthew Stafford. I think we all got a really good look inside the NFL. This is what the NFL thinks of the player. What Washington was willing to give up, what Carolina was willing to give up, what Denver was willing to give up. There were multiple teams that had first-round picks on the table or the equivalent of first-round picks. There were teams with sitting quarterbacks that were willing to take a look at him. I think it's going to be really interesting to watch this one going forward. Now, there is sort of a twist to it here. Brad Holmes came from Los Angeles. He's the Lions’ new general manager. So he's betting on Jared Goff right now, at least in the short term. He's taking on his contract, and Jared Goff, in all likelihood, we'll see what they do in the draft, is their day one starter. So he has the insight on Jared Goff and he traded for Jared Goff. He also has insight on the Rams. So where does he believe those picks are going to be? He was willing to take future first-rounders even though he doesn't know where they're going to be. Does he believe the Rams are going to be a Super Bowl team? Which would put the pick in the 30s, or a little less than that? We'll see the way it plays out. And the great thing is we get to all watch in real time. Matthew Stafford has the ability to make the picks that are going back to Detroit, to his former team, worse. If he plays as well as Sean McVay, Les Snead, and all those guys think he is, well, then he's going to devalue the picks he's sending to Detroit. It's going to be kind of like a living document, those trade terms over the next two years.
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