In the Wild Card playoff game, the Detroit Lions and Los Angeles Rams will create playoff history.
When the Los Angeles Rams and Detroit Lions play one other in the NFC Wild Card playoff game on Sunday, history will be made.
In postseason history, this game will be the first where the starting quarterbacks of the Rams and Lions, Matthew Stafford and Jared Goff, will face each other simultaneously.
On January 30, 2021, the tradition of two former quarterbacks playing simultaneously for their previous teams began. At that point, the Rams traded Stafford, the top choice in the 2009 NFL draft, to the Lions in exchange for Goff, the first overall pick in the 2016 NFL draft, first-round selections in 2022 and 2023, and a third-round selection in the 2021 draft.
Despite Goff leading the Rams to Super Bowl 53 in 2019—a game they lost to the New England Patriots 13-3—the Rams were prepared to let him go. After two years, there had been a significant decline in the relationship between Goff and Rams coach Sean McVay.
“Undoubtedly, there were disagreements at the end,” Goff said to reporters on Wednesday.
McVay admitted that he could have handled the deal and Goff’s last few days in a better way.
Making a shift ultimately proved to be challenging. And could I have done a better job handling it? Indeed. And I won’t ever try to escape that,” McVay declared to the press. “He was entitled to a better outcome than what transpired.” I will accept that.
The Rams saw instant benefits from the transaction. In his first season on the Rams, Stafford helped the team defeat the Cincinnati Bengals 13-3 in order to win Super Bowl 56 in 2021.
Goff has experienced a rebirth in 2023, guiding the Lions to a 12-5 record – tied for most victories in franchise history – and an NFC North division title. The Lions are hosting their first-ever home playoff game since they defeated the Green Bay Packers in a 1993 Wild Card playoff game, and Goff has the chance to help them pull off a remarkable postseason victory.
