NFC Super Wildcard Weekend: Los Angeles Rams (10-7) @ Detroit Lions (12-5)

[buddha]

7 hours ago, Motown Bombers said:

I think this is foolish logic. There isn't evidence that they couldn't have won without Stafford. McVay didn't get the most out of Goff. If he was a better coach, they could have won it with Goff, had extra cap space, and had multiple first round picks to add talent to the roster. Maybe the Rams don't win it in 2021 but the next year and set up themselves up better for the future. 

they didnt win without stafford.  they did win with stafford.  that is the fact.  everything else is speculation.

the trade worked out for both teams.

[MichiganCardinal]

16 minutes ago, buddha said:

they didnt win without stafford.  they did win with stafford.  that is the fact.  everything else is speculation.

the trade worked out for both teams.

They won with Goff too. NFC Championship ain’t for nothing. It’s hard to say it would have happened with Goff too, but I think that speaks more to how McVay mismanaged that relationship than it does to Goff’s talents.

While you’ll never be able to say the Rams lost the trade, because they won a Super Bowl, I do think the net positive may be higher for the Lions. It feels intuitively more difficult to take a team from 60 years of futility and make a contender in three years than it does to take an NFC Champion and make them a Super Bowl Champion.

[buddha]

24 minutes ago, MichiganCardinal said:

They won with Goff too. NFC Championship ain’t for nothing. It’s hard to say it would have happened with Goff too, but I think that speaks more to how McVay mismanaged that relationship than it does to Goff’s talents.

While you’ll never be able to say the Rams lost the trade, because they won a Super Bowl, I do think the net positive may be higher for the Lions. It feels intuitively more difficult to take a team from 60 years of futility and make a contender in three years than it does to take an NFC Champion and make them a Super Bowl Champion.

they won the super bowl with stafford.  both teams benefitted from the trade.  it doesnt have to be "my team won hahaha you suck."

its ok that stafford is still a good qb.  you can be a lions fan and admit it.  and the rams have rebounded nicely in the draft.  kyren williams and puka nacua had better seasons than jahmyr gibbs and jameson williams.

brad holmes learned well and is doing a fabulous job.  its no shame to say that the place where he honed his craft is also still a good front office.

hopefully goff and the lions outplay stafford on sunday.

[MichiganCardinal]

14 minutes ago, buddha said:

they won the super bowl with stafford.  both teams benefitted from the trade.  it doesnt have to be "my team won hahaha you suck."

its ok that stafford is still a good qb.  you can be a lions fan and admit it.  and the rams have rebounded nicely in the draft.  kyren williams and puka nacua had better seasons than jahmyr gibbs and jameson williams.

brad holmes learned well and is doing a fabulous job.  its no shame to say that the place where he honed his craft is also still a good front office.

hopefully goff and the lions outplay stafford on sunday.

I agree with all of this (especially the last part). Both teams did win the trade.

I think I just don’t like that it’s felt as if the Rams are absolved from all scrutiny regarding the trade because they won one additional game with Stafford. Not far removed from that fallacy is the one that Stafford must be great and Goff must suck, because of the trade and what’s happened since.

While I would love (beyond words) to see the Lions win a single Super Bowl, I would prefer to be them over the Rams right now, even considering that Super Bowl.

[Motown Bombers]

1 hour ago, buddha said:

they didnt win without stafford.  they did win with stafford.  that is the fact.  everything else is speculation.

the trade worked out for both teams.

They also didn't win the Super Bowl (they won plenty with Goff) without OBJ, Von Miller, Bobby Wagner and a healthy Wintworth. Saying Stafford is the sole reason for their Super Bowl is speculation. 

[RandyMarsh]

The Rams also got incredibly fortunate in that playoff run on who they faced. Got a free falling Cardinals team, a Bucs team without half their starting o line and 2 best defenders, a banged up 10 win 49ers team and a 9 win Bengals team in the Super Bowl.

It was about as easy of playoff run as one could get and I have no doubt that Goff could've beaten those same teams if given the chance. 

Edited January 10, 2024 by RandyMarsh

[Motown Bombers]

1 hour ago, MichiganCardinal said:

They won with Goff too. NFC Championship ain’t for nothing. It’s hard to say it would have happened with Goff too, but I think that speaks more to how McVay mismanaged that relationship than it does to Goff’s talents.

While you’ll never be able to say the Rams lost the trade, because they won a Super Bowl, I do think the net positive may be higher for the Lions. It feels intuitively more difficult to take a team from 60 years of futility and make a contender in three years than it does to take an NFC Champion and make them a Super Bowl Champion.

At the time, Goff was the youngest QB ever to win an NFC Championship. They wouldn't have won a Super Bowl with Goff. That's because of McVay and not Goff. The fact is the Lions have gotten more out of Goff than the great McVay. Zac Taylor was the QB coach in 17 and 18 which were Goff's best years with the Rams. Taylor goes to Cincinnati and McVay becomes the defacto QB coach. That's when everything went downhill. As McVay became more involved, Goff got worse. Instead of being a good coach and getting the most out of his QB, the QB that he signed to a massive extension, he sends him out of town. The Lions get a QB that McVay has broken. He struggles in his first year. Dan Campbell takes over as play caller and essentially QB coach and actually coaches him up and Goff has been a different QB ever since. If McVay had done what Campbell did, they would have had a younger version of Stafford, more cap space to add to the roster, and more draft picks to add to the roster. 

[Motown Bombers]

40 minutes ago, buddha said:

they won the super bowl with stafford.  both teams benefitted from the trade.  it doesnt have to be "my team won hahaha you suck."

its ok that stafford is still a good qb.  you can be a lions fan and admit it.  and the rams have rebounded nicely in the draft.  kyren williams and puka nacua had better seasons than jahmyr gibbs and jameson williams.

brad holmes learned well and is doing a fabulous job.  its no shame to say that the place where he honed his craft is also still a good front office.

hopefully goff and the lions outplay stafford on sunday.

Imagine having Nacua, Williams, and multiple 1st round picks and millions in cap space. 

[buddha]

31 minutes ago, MichiganCardinal said:

I agree with all of this (especially the last part). Both teams did win the trade.

I think I just don’t like that it’s felt as if the Rams are absolved from all scrutiny regarding the trade because they won one additional game with Stafford. Not far removed from that fallacy is the one that Stafford must be great and Goff must suck, because of the trade and what’s happened since.

While I would love (beyond words) to see the Lions win a single Super Bowl, I would prefer to be them over the Rams right now, even considering that Super Bowl.

no one is saying goff sucks.  all i'm saying is that the rams did very well with that trade and then drafted very well deapite trading two picks to the lions.

and "one additional game" kind of undersells it a bit.  🙂

[Motown Bombers]

The Rams didn't do very well. Goff and Stafford have been a wash. The Lions got multiple 1st round picks and nearly $20 million in cap savings. 

[gehringer_2]

On 1/8/2024 at 9:23 AM, buddha said:

 

he's gone.  100% gone imo.

another  point on JH is that his reverse buy-out to leave UM drops on 1/11 from $2.25M to $1.5M. With the Natty he has earned about $2M in bonuses so if he does bolt now (i.e. after tomorrow) he can walk away and still have more $ coming back in bonus than the amount it will cost him to walk. Or at least in the ballpark after taxes.

https://www.mlive.com/wolverines/2024/01/jim-harbaugh-contract-more-bonus-money-buyout-set-to-drop-more.html

Edited January 10, 2024 by gehringer_2

[Jason_R]

Maybe McVay is a great offensive mind but he is abrasive and seems to have a trail of coaches and players he's rubbed the wrong way. But if ten years in Detroit didn't break Stafford down mentally, Sean McVay wasn't going to do it. He needed a player like Stafford as much as Stafford needed a ticket out of football purgatory. 

It turns out to have been a win for both teams, it also turns out to have been a win for both players. If Detroit wins on Sunday, it will take a little bit more of the shine off of McVay. 

[Tigeraholic1]

I can’t get enough of these hype videos. This one is really well done.

 

 

[buddha]

1 hour ago, Motown Bombers said:

The Rams didn't do very well. Goff and Stafford have been a wash. The Lions got multiple 1st round picks and nearly $20 million in cap savings. 

the rams won the super bowl.  that is thw very definition of doing well.

[Motown Bombers]

1 minute ago, buddha said:

the rams won the super bowl.  that is thw very definition of doing well.

I remember when I used to get shot down by bringing up Goff led a team to a Super Bowl. It was because of McVay and Todd Gurley! Weird how the Rams going to the Super Bowl in 2018 had nothing to do with Goff and was in spite of him but Stafford, who won nothing in Detroit, is suddenly the whole reason they won a Super Bowl and not OBJ or Von Miller. 

[oblong]

Weather's going to be pretty crappy it looks like.  Storm coming in and the rain/snow line looks right through the Metro Detroit area and then it will be very cold. That's a bummer.  

[NYLion]

13 hours ago, Motown Bombers said:

Like I tried to say a long time ago, they're basically the same. 

 

And that also includes the season which Goff had to endure a torn down roster and Anthony Lynn.

[NYLion]

12 hours ago, Motown Bombers said:

I think this is foolish logic. There isn't evidence that they couldn't have won without Stafford. McVay didn't get the most out of Goff. If he was a better coach, they could have won it with Goff, had extra cap space, and had multiple first round picks to add talent to the roster. Maybe the Rams don't win it in 2021 but the next year and set up themselves up better for the future. 

It's not foolish, it was a win win trade. The Rams and Lions both got what they wanted out of the trade, end of story. Rams for short term success and Lions for long term success.

[Motown Bombers]

12 minutes ago, NYLion said:

It's not foolish, it was a win win trade. The Rams and Lions both got what they wanted out of the trade, end of story. Rams for short term success and Lions for long term success.

It doesn't absolve McVay for his handling of Goff. Two years after committing a huge contract to Goff and confirming he is your franchise QB, McVay broke him and ran him out of town. Even if you didn't believe peak Goff was good enough to win a Super Bowl, McVay made it to where Goff had no value. I disagree that the only way for the Rams to have short term success was to mortgage their future and run Goff out of town. They could have had short term success and set themselves up better for the future. 

[MichiganCardinal]

1 hour ago, oblong said:

Weather's going to be pretty crappy it looks like.  Storm coming in and the rain/snow line looks right through the Metro Detroit area and then it will be very cold. That's a bummer.  

Good thing the Ford’s made one good decision 25 years ago and built a roof.

As opposed to Kansas City, where game time temps are expected to hover around 0 and drop as the game goes on.

[Motown Bombers]

1 minute ago, MichiganCardinal said:

Good thing the Ford’s made one good decision 25 years ago and built a roof.

As opposed to Kansas City, where game time temps are expected to hover around 0 and drop as the game goes on.

The Ford's really made that decision nearly 50 years ago. 

[Dan Gilmore]

1 hour ago, oblong said:

Weather's going to be pretty crappy it looks like.  Storm coming in and the rain/snow line looks right through the Metro Detroit area and then it will be very cold. That's a bummer.  

It would be a real shame if the Rams team bus broke down on the way from their hotel and they had to walk miles through icy conditions. Yeah, a real shame. 😎

[buddha]

2 hours ago, Motown Bombers said:

I remember when I used to get shot down by bringing up Goff led a team to a Super Bowl. It was because of McVay and Todd Gurley! Weird how the Rams going to the Super Bowl in 2018 had nothing to do with Goff and was in spite of him but Stafford, who won nothing in Detroit, is suddenly the whole reason they won a Super Bowl and not OBJ or Von Miller. 

i'm not saying stafford is THE reason they won the super bowl, but they did win the super bowl.  and i do think he played a big part in that.  thus, the matt stafford trade was a success for the rams.

[buddha]

two things can be true:

sean mcvay is a really good coach.

sean mcvay and jared goff's relationship didnt work well enough and at least part of that is sean mcvay's fault.

[RedRamage]

1 hour ago, Motown Bombers said:

It doesn't absolve McVay for his handling of Goff. Two years after committing a huge contract to Goff and confirming he is your franchise QB, McVay broke him and ran him out of town. Even if you didn't believe peak Goff was good enough to win a Super Bowl, McVay made it to where Goff had no value. I disagree that the only way for the Rams to have short term success was to mortgage their future and run Goff out of town. They could have had short term success and set themselves up better for the future. 

First, I don't think anyone is saying winning a SB with Stafford on the team absolves McVay of anything. That's not the point.

Second, the "They could have had short term success and set themselves up better" part is only true if you assume that McVay is able to change who he is/what he thought. It feels a bit like saying: "I can't go outside my house from my dining room so I need to go into my den first and then go outside." And you replying: "You could have gone outside from your dining room if you just put a door in the wall."

McVay didn't know how to handle Goff right and/or Goff changed what he was doing after the trade (I'm leaning more towards #1 here). If the Rams didn't trade for Stafford, McVay would continue to mishandle Goff and/or Goff likely won't have changed his approach.

McVay could have changed his approach, but it's very unlikely that would have happened. I could put in an outside door in my dining room, but that's definitely not going to happen. So without the trade it's very, very likely the Rams don't make the SB just like it's very, very likely I'm not moving directly from my dining room to the outside.

You seem to be arguing that the trade isn't a win for the Rams because they didn't need to do it. But because of the "McVay Block" in regards to how he perceived Goff, they did have to do it.