The Los Angeles Rams sent Jared Goff to the Detroit Lions to acquire Matthew Stafford this past offseason, but that wasn’t the only move the Rams and Lions conducted. In what was an emotional move for fans in Los Angeles, the Rams traded Michael Brockers to the Lions in exchange for a future seventh-round pick.
With Los Angeles and Detroit squaring off in Week 7, Sean McVay spoke about how tough it has been to replace the presence and production of Brockers.
“No question. He was a great leader for such a long period of time. He’s got such a big personality and he had such a positive presence on this team,” McVay said. “He was a really productive player. You’re missing him in a lot of instances. What I really think is, some guys have really stepped up and elevated their playing in his absence. You look at a Sebastian Joseph-Day, you look at a Greg Gaines, A’Shawn Robinson, I think those guys have done a really nice job of filling that void. But, you miss his presence, you miss his personality, his production. Michael was a great player for us. Really loved working with him. We wanted to be able to continue to work (together), have him back here and for whatever reason, it didn’t work out, but he’s doing a good job. He’s playing good ball for them.”
Brockers was one of the longest-tenured players on the Rams before being traded in the offseason. The veteran defensive tackle was one of the few players that experienced the dark days with the St. Louis Rams under Jeff Fisher, to the winning culture under McVay from 2017-2020.
During his nine years with the Rams, Brockers was one of the vocal leaders on defense. While Brockers didn’t accumulate the sacks that Aaron Donald has, he still had 28 sacks in his career with the Rams, and he was productive in areas that weren’t visible in a box score.
There’s a ton of attention centered around Stafford and Goff facing their former teams on Sunday, and rightfully so. But along with fans showing their appreciation for Goff, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Brockers get a warm welcome from the fans in Los Angeles this weekend.
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