Let’s get one thing clear off the top. The price the LA Rams paid for former Detroit Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford was a price the SF 49ers most certainly shouldn’t have paid.
But outside of general manager John Lynch and head coach Kyle Shanahan making the trade themselves, Stafford’s soon-to-be new landing spot is just about the worst place he could have ended up from the Niners’ perspective.
The Rams made the playoffs in 2020 with a 10-6 record, getting in as the sixth seed in the NFC and beating the NFC West champion Seattle Seahawks in the Wild Card round before losing to the Green Bay Packers in the divisional round.
But despite their having one of the best offensive minds in the NFL, head coach in Sean McVay, the Rams were just 17th in Football Outsiders‘ Weighted Offensive DVOA metric at minus-4.8 percent. Yet by the same metric on the other side of the ball, LA was tops in the NFL at minus-24.2 percent (remember, negative numbers are good for defense, bad for offense).
A lot of what held them back, relatively speaking, was the lack of efficient quarterback play from Jared Goff, who finished 20th in defense-adjusted yards above replacement (DYAR) with 385.
This essentially means, based on the defenses the Rams faced, Goff only threw 385 yards more than a mid-level quarterback would have. Even if you remove the adjustment for defenses (YAR), Goff’s number was a mere 305 yards.
Per DVOA, Goff was the 22nd best quarterback in the NFL at minus-1.1 percent (again, negative numbers on offense aren’t the goal).
More to the point, Goff threw 13 interceptions, tied for third in the league, and fumbled seven times, while tossing just 20 touchdowns in 15 regular-season games.
All this to say, Goff wasn’t efficient or particularly good in 2020 (or 2019 for that matter), which was a large part of why the team wasn’t as good as it could have been based on its defense in either season, but especially last season.
To be fair, Stafford wasn’t miles better in 2020, finishing 14th in DYAR (684), 16th in YAR (628), and 14th in DVOA (7.7 percent) while throwing 10 picks in 16 games. However, in this case, the quarterback didn’t ground an otherwise impressive team, as Detroit’s defense was dead-last in weighted defensive DVOA at 21.3 percent.
The Lions also had a mediocre running game to support Stafford (21st in DVOA at minus-13.8 percent), while Goff had the fourth best rushing attack by DVOA at 3.5 percent.
Essentially, the Rams are betting on two things.
First, that their defense will remain among the league’s best, even if there is a decline, something that seems likely given the inconsistency of defensive performance from year to year and a quick glance at their free agents, which suggests they’ll lose some key contributors on that side of the ball.
Second, Stafford will be vastly more efficient in McVay’s offense than Goff has been over the last two seasons, and the former’s situation has been negatively impacting his numbers. Otherwise, they paid an awful lot for a quarterback who is only marginally better than Goff has been since the Rams went to the Super Bowl.
Even if the first is a bit of a crapshoot, the second seems quite likely, and this is why Stafford going to the Rams instead of the SF 49ers, or really most any other team he could have joined, is the worst-case scenario for San Francisco.
No matter what happens with SF 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo through the rest of this offseason, it seems a certainty the team will go into 2021 with the worst quarterback situation in their own division, even if it isn’t terrible by the standards of other teams around the NFL.
Barring the Niners shocking the league and pulling off a trade for Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson, that will remain for this season.
Even trading up in the draft to grab one of the top rookies not named Trevor Lawrence would still keep them in the cellar, at least for 2021, even if their long-term outlook would improve.
Again, the argument here isn’t the SF 49ers should have broken the bank for Stafford, a quarterback who will turn 33 years old this week and wouldn’t have been a long-term answer for the team anyway.
It’s just from the Niners’ perspective, there were certainly better places Stafford could have gone since his presence in the NFC West could make the return to the top of the division all that more difficult heading into 2021.