When NBC’s local Detroit affiliate reported late last night that the Lions were actively shopping Matthew Stafford, I was skeptical. It seems like every offseason, his name comes up in trade talks and nothing ever comes of it. On top of that, he just turned 32 years old, was playing arguably the best football of his career prior to missing the second half of the season, and would account for $32 million in dead cap if the Lions were to trade him.
Most rational people would conclude that it would be foolish to trade him.
But, what if the person calling the shots isn’t acting rationally? What if they’ve performed unsatisfactorily in a high-pressure industry and have retreated into the small, reptilian part of their brain that is responsible for fear and the decision to draft Teez Tabor in the second round? What if self-preservation is their motive?
Fan confidence in Bob Quinn is at an all-time low. If he wants to keep his job beyond 2020, he has to do something to restore long-term optimism in the direction of the organization. Luckily for him, trading Stafford would be a great way to kick the can down the road. Fans would certainly react negatively to the move, but it wouldn’t get him fired because a seismic shift like that almost certainly requires ownership sign-off, and a vote of approval to trade Stafford would be a vote of confidence in Quinn’s future with the team. At that point, ownership would be committed to a rebuild and it seems unlikely they’d allow a lame-duck GM to pick their next franchise quarterback.
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And to make matters worse, the hypothetical choice they’d have at third overall would be unappealing. Assuming the Bengals take Joe Burrow, Detroit can choose from one of two consolation prizes. Tua Tagovailoa has the hips of a German Shepherd and is naturally right-handed, although I’m sure his father’s attempt to reconfigure the lateralization of his brain has nothing to do with his medical concerns, just as I’m certain those concerns won’t derail a promising NFL career in which he’ll be able to subsist on RPO glances to four first-round receivers lined up against future pyramid scheme participants.
If you ask me, Tagovailoa is just Chevan Cordeiro with better marketing, but he’s still a better option than Justin Herbert, whose most prestigious collegiate distinction was being named to the 1st Team PAC-12 All-Academic team in 2017, which may help explain why his pro comp is Josh Allen with 25% more neural activity.
Nevertheless, fans are happy to talk themselves into a quarterback of the future regardless of what it costs to get them or how improbable their success may be. People believed in Mitch Trubisky, after all. So, if Quinn can get ownership to sign off on a Stafford trade, fans will inevitably rationalize the trade and acquiesce to the promise of a brighter future.
As for the dead cap hit: why should Quinn care? If he’s writing off 2020 anyway, he may not miss the money that much. And if it does negatively affect the organization long-term, he won’t be the one who has to clean up the mess.
These are not the best management practices. Trading Stafford would all but guarantee that 2020 will be yet another season of uninspired football, and I’m not confident that Quinn would be able to maximize the returns to effectively rebuild the team. However, he has a track record of moving the goalposts and he’s up against a wall, so I’m not going to rule it out. As crazy as trading Stafford would be, desperate people do desperate things. And if Stafford is indeed moved, a fanbase that has long been desperate for a contender will find itself yearning for a better tomorrow once again.