The Los Angeles Rams traded Jared Goff to the Detroit Lions in 2021. The four-time Pro Bowler still feels the sting entering his fifth season with his new team. However, former three-time Pro Bowl linebacker LaVar Arrington believes Goff sounds like a “soft mother F’er.”
Goff and fellow QB Kirk Cousins’ (Atlanta Falcons) aired their grievances about how they felt wronged by their organizations during Season 2 Episode 2 of Netflix’s “Quarterback.”
The now-47-year-old Fox Sports Radio analyst did not hold back.
“Quarterbacks, they must have an alternate reality,” Arrington said on “Two Pros and a Cup of Joe” on July 11. “They all just sound like a bunch of soft mother F’ers, man. And listen, I can understand what Jared Goff is saying here. But again, this is business. This is business. You can throw out there [that] there should be a level of maturity and different things like that, and it must be a different level of communication and entitlement for quarterbacks. Because it seems like every time I hear a conversation coming from them, it represents something that you would expect if you have the courtesy of the back-and-forth.
“‘I felt like I wasn’t wanted.’ They didn’t want you. That’s why they traded you. If they wanted you, you wouldn’t be traded. So you felt like, what, that you were blindsided by it? That happens to players every single day.”
Arrington, who played seven seasons in the NFL. Six were with the Washington Commanders organization, and one was with the New York Giants. He retired in 2007 due to a neck injury.
“This is generally only a conversation when quarterbacks are involved. It really is. Every once in a while, you have a legendary player, and it’ll be a different position. But it just doesn’t hit the same. I just feel like maybe the rules of engagement surrounding quarterbacks is much different than it is for the rest of the players on the team.”
The Rams selected Goff with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2016 draft.
Lions QB Jared Goff Still Hurt by Rams Trade
GettyJared Goff #16 leads the Detroit Lions on to the field for their game against the Los Angeles Rams.
Goff spent four seasons with the Rams, earning his first two Pro Bowl trips and leading the franchise to the Super Bowl following the 2018 regular season. The Rams traded him two seasons later, sending him as part of a package to the Lions for Matthew Stafford.
According to Goff, Rams head coach Sean McVay alerted him of the trade just moments before it was worldwide news.
“Three weeks after the last game of the season, get a call from Sean, and, really did not expect anything. He lets me know they’re trading me to Detroit, and I’m kind of like, ‘Oh, whoa. Okay, alright. What the hell’ you know? ‘What’s happening?’ I would say about 30 seconds after that phone call, it was on Twitter,” Goff said during the episode.
“You feel like you’ve been betrayed or like you’re not wanted. And I think for me, ultimately, it was the fact that there wasn’t a conversation had, and that there wasn’t a ‘Hey, we’re thinking about moving on’ type of thing. There was nothing. You wish that it wasn’t such a blind side, and you wish that there was some sort of maturity, I guess, to have that conversation, and to be able to let me know what’s going on, and how things went down, and why this is happening. It was my first real taste of true adversity, and your career is kind of at a fork in the road.”
Goff has since earned two more Pro Bowl trips, guiding the Lions to three more wins than the previous campaign in each of the last two seasons. They won the NFC North in 2024 but struggled against the Commanders in the Divisional Playoffs.
The Rams won the Super Bowl following the 2021 regular season, Goff and Stafford’s first season after swapping places.
GM: Rams Did Not Anticipate Matthew Stafford Trade
GettyLos Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay talks to quarterback Matthew Stafford during practice.
Cousins’ situation with the Falcons differs from Goff’s with the Rams. Cousins left the Minnesota Vikings willingly in free agency, amid the organization’s plans to draft a quarterback and compensate the veteran accordingly, i.e., yearly.
However, Goff’s situation also came as a surprise to the Rams. They were bracing for a retooling effort before Stafford became available.
Rams general manager Les Snead said Stafford “disturbed” their “rejuvenation.”
“I think Matthew probably disturbed our rejuvenation period,” Snead told reporters in January. “Because I think we did play in the Divisional Round that year, and then maybe a week later is when it leaked that, ‘Hey, he would like to be traded,’ and the Lions were thinking of trading him. So we had to get back to work a little bit quicker than we wanted to.”
Goff is 1-1 against the Rams during the regular season. However, he and the Lions did beat his former team in the 2024 NFC Wild Card Playoffs.
Still, he has spoken frequently about his feelings on the trade and being with the Lions. The Rams had not anticipated Stafford’s availability, either, just as his fellow former No. 1 overall pick did not expect a trade.
