It has been over a year since the Los Angeles Rams shipped former No. 1 pick Jared Goff to the Detroit Lions to land Matthew Stafford. While coach Sean McVay has no regrets over the trade, he does wish he had handled it a bit differently.
McVay admitted in a recent episode of the “Open Mike” podcast that he wishes he had done a better job communicating with Goff when it became clear that the Rams were interested in Stafford, and that he holds himself responsible for the failure to do so.
“If I had it over again, what I would do is, before I had even gone to Cabo, when there was a possibility of, alright, if Matthew Stafford’s available, if there’s other quarterbacks available, that would be something that we would explore,” McVay said. “You sit down with him, you look him in the eye, you tell him that instead of calling him and setting up a meeting where that was my intention when I got back from Cabo.
“Whatever I’m going to say from here on out is an excuse, but my intentions were to be able to sit down with Jared. I never thought things would accelerate as quickly as they did. … When it got public that we were interested in Matthew, what we thought was going to be a week’s worth of time ended up happening in about 24 to 36 hours.”
Goff made clear after being traded that he was hurt by how the Rams handled his exit. The whole process bothered him so much that even McVay’s previous public admission of miscommunication was not enough for him. This latest comment from McVay is unlikely to change those feelings, either.
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