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Is the 2021 Stafford-Goff trade repeating itself with Trevor Lawrence and the Jaguars new GM from L.A.?
The similarities of 2021 are so eerie that is worth exploring the potential of a Matthew Stafford for Trevor Lawrence trade and if you think that a blockbuster of that magnitude is impossible then you’ve never met Les Snead, who has informed Stafford’s agents that they can gauge their value with other teams. People have been asking for weeks what the NFL’s version of the Luka Doncic-Anthony Davis trade would be and while Lawrence is no Luka, this is as close as it could get.
Though there are complications to the Jacksonville Jaguars trading Lawrence due to his contract, the Los Angeles Rams are maybe the only team that could pull it off because of Stafford.
Here’s how it would work, but first the similarities to 2021:
Just as in 2021 with Brad Holmes, the Jaguars have hired a new general manager out of L.A.’s front office, this time that person being James Gladstone.
The Lions hired Holmes in 2021 and he immediately traded an unhappy Stafford to his old boss in exchange for a Jared Goff and two first round picks. Opening the familiarity pipeline between L.A. and Jacksonville just as two quarterbacks face uncertain futures means that the one GM around the league who Gladstone knows he can work with is Snead.
This wasn’t even one of the factors from 2021, it’s just more reason to think that Jacksonville would be a sensible landing spot for Matthew Stafford. The Jaguars hired Liam Coen, the Rams offensive coordinator in 2022, as their new head coach and play caller.
That’s the only season that Stafford and Coen have worked together (he was at Kentucky in 2021) and it didn’t go well, but it does mean that Stafford would have a smooth transition to the Jacksonville offense. Smoother than probably any other QB the Jaguars could start, including Lawrence.
Of course the Jaguars most likely hired Coen with the intention to bring the most out of Lawrence, but if Gladstone could pull off what Holmes pulled off in Detroit (making arguably the worst franchise in the NFL into a Super Bowl contender despite trading for a QB downgrade in his first year on the job) and add assets to their future then Jacksonville could be better off than with Lawence.
We also all pretty much know that since Lawrence was drafted and Stafford was traded in 2021, that Stafford has been the better quarterback. If he goes to the Jaguars in 2025, that’s a division that he could help them win immediately.
Conversely, the Rams see that they have a really young defense and a really old offense. Without a clear path towards drafting a QBOTF (L.A. picks 26th in a weak QB class this year),...
