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More details emerge on the Detroit Lions’ process to trade Matthew Stafford with the Los Angeles Rams and other teams involved in the talks. Albert Breer, who reviewed some of Detroit’s biggest deals on Monday, provided even more details later in the week.
According to Breer, there was another team that nearly got Stafford on the Rams: the Carolina Panthers. The negotiations were so close to completion that the Panthers were in the process of tidying up Stafford’s medical reports – one of the last processes of an exchange.
“I was told the Panthers, at one point on Saturday, were at the point where they were in the process of getting medical attention from Stafford of Detroit,” Breer wrote. “Obviously things changed from there with the Rams’ persistence and aggression winning out. But if you thought the Panthers’ loot for Stafford was strong – the eighth pick, plus one more pick – then I’d say the sellers of that equation would agree with you, because they almost took it.
If the Lions and Panthers were really that close to a deal, it seems to go against the report of former NFL quarterback Chris Simms, who suggested Matthew Stafford negotiate with Carolina.
“A very reliable source told me that, yeah, he kind of crushed the Carolina thing,” Simms said on PFT Live Monday, per MLive. “So I don’t think he wanted that to happen. He was sort of leading that conversation on a team where he felt comfortable and wanted to play and live there, and I think that’s where the Rams really made a lot of sense to Stafford.
Stafford did not have a no-trade clause in his contract, and although Lions head coach Dan Campbell acknowledged that Stafford would be consulted on the trade, he also told the Detroit Free Press: “We going to find the best value for the Detroit. Lions and what’s best for us. ”
If the trade negotiations had really progressed as far as Breer suggests, one would have to imagine that they had already received Stafford’s blessing.
Either way, the deal the Lions ultimately turned down was apparently the eighth pick overall and a later pick. The value of that first-round pick could prove to be more than the two first-round picks Detroit acquired from the Rams. According to the famous NFL Draft trading chart, that eighth pick overall is worth the same as two picks at 26th overall.
However, the Panthers deal may have been missing another key element. Per Breer, a return quarterback was a key part of the deal, and it’s unclear whether Carolina ever put Teddy Bridgewater on the table or if the Lions even cared about him. Instead, the Lions got Jared Goff, a player they’re more than familiar with.
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