Two years after leading the Rams to Super Bowl LIII, Jared Goff was dumped by the team that drafted him first overall in 2016 – and had just signed him to a four-year extension about 18 months prior.
The Rams traded him to the Lions, along with three draft picks, in exchange for Matthew Stafford. It was a bold and risky move by Los Angeles, but one that has paid off in a huge way already.
The Rams have found themselves in the Super Bowl, while Goff is coming off a difficult first year with the Lions in which he went 3-10-1 in 14 starts. Yet, despite feeling disrespected and caught off guard by the trade last January, Goff is happy to see his former team – and the guy who replaced him – in the Super Bowl.
“Most of all, I’m happy for those guys because I know how hard they’ve worked, and they deserve it,” Goff told Mike Silver of Bally Sports. “Of course, as a human, you feel like you can be missing out at times. But I think about, if I was in that situation, how would they feel about me? They’d be equally as thrilled for me.
“It’s something that you wish you could be a part of in your own right with the Lions, but we’re not right now — and watching them do it is just another part of the journey.”
Goff still has friends within the Rams organization, including Andrew Whitworth, Cooper Kupp, Tyler Higbee and Robert Woods. He spent four years with them in Los Angeles and says they “deserve everything they’re getting.”
He’s also thrilled for Stafford, who he’s always been a fan of. Knowing how difficult his tenure was with the Lions, Goff is rooting for Stafford to pull it out and win a ring with the Rams.
“Yeah, I’ve always been a huge fan of Matthew’s as a player and as a person,” Goff said. “I know that what he went through the first part of his career was tough, and seeing him battle through that and get his opportunity now, it’s amazing. You root for people like that. It’s impossible not to. And it’s impossible not to root for good things to happen to good people.”
Goff now knows the struggle of playing on a team that’s rebuilding and lacking the talent to make a Super Bowl run. That’s something Stafford experienced for much of his 12-year career with the Lions, but he’s reaped the benefits of having arguably the best supporting cast in football this season.
Goff is still just 27 years old so he has plenty of time left to win a ring, but the Lions aren’t equipped to make a run to the Super Bowl right now – certainly not the way the Rams were when Stafford arrived last January.
