It almost felt like a dead end to Matthew Stafford. After 12 grueling seasons with little success, the prospect of another franchise rebuild was just as concerning as it was tiresome. So, the quarterback and his team did what they had to do.

And while Stafford’s move to the Los Angeles Rams was evidently rewarding (courtesy of a Super Bowl win in his very first season), the Lions are reaping the benefits just as much. Just ask head coach Dan Campbell.

“You find out pretty quickly that Matt Stafford – we’re going to need to trade him away,” Campbell said on Coach2Coach with Jason Garrett. “Really, that move set up everything: what we really are now, because it gave us the draft capital. It gave us a quarterback, a young quarterback, and Jared Goff.”

The trade, requested by the quarterback himself, was made in January 2021, but here’s the thing: While Stafford left as the franchise’s all-time leader in passing yards, touchdowns, and completions, the Lions had gone to the playoffs only three times while he was in Detroit. It goes without saying that the team had problems to solve.

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Their rushing attack, for one, was ineffective. Since Stafford entered the NFL in 2009, Reggie Bush had been the only Lions running back to break the 1,000-yard rushing mark in a single season. That was a surprising stat that has lasted throughout Stafford’s entire Detroit tenure.

The quarterback also didn’t have a good offense and defense at the same time. No wonder he asked for the trade after the 2020 season ended. He told WDIV in 2021 that it was the “hardest conversation” he’d ever had.

Detroit sent Stafford to the Los Angeles Rams for quarterback Jared Goff, a third-round pick in the 2021 draft, and first-round picks in the 2022 and 2023 drafts.

Campbell had a vision on how to rebuild after Stafford’s exit.

“I told Sheila Ford, who’s you know, been unbelievable in this,” Campbell mentioned. “But really Sheila’s my point person. So Brad [Holmes] and I both told her, we’re going to have to tear this down to the studs and build it back up, but we have a vision for how we want to do it. And there could be some growing pains here.”

The Stafford trade led to Jared Goff and a group of young players orchestrating the Lions’ rebuild. That included players like Jahmyr Gibbs, Sam LaPorta, Jameson Williams, Ifeatu Melifonwu, Josh Paschal and Brodric Martin. And with time, the Detroit Lions have become a contender, unlike during Stafford’s tenure. The Lions have been to the postseason twice after 2020.

Stafford was never the sole reason for Detroit’s losing slump. But when the top brass changed with Dan Campbell and Brad Holmes’ arrivals, Stafford saw what was coming.

“Anytime you switch GMs and a head coach, you know that they’re going to want to bring their own people in, and that’s going to take time,” Stafford said back then. “I didn’t feel like I was the appropriate person to oversee that time.”

Campbell also had to manage expectations around what came next. The Lions were not going to turn things around overnight, and their first season under their new coach proved that. Detroit went 3-13-1 in 2021. Campbell does not remember that team by its record, though. That group, in his view, laid the groundwork for everything after.

“It wasn’t the most talented group, but it was one of the most special groups I’ve been around, because those guys were fighters,” he said.

Today, the trade has worked well for all parties involved. Stafford went on to win the Super Bowl with the Rams, and is gearing up to win another one this year as the reigning NFL MVP. In Detroit, Jared Goff is returning to a powerful offense this year after two consecutive Pro Bowl nods.

Jared Goff stabilized the Lions after Stafford’s exit

Jared Goff became the steady hand a struggling Detroit franchise desperately needed as it faced turbulence. Ironically, Goff arrived after essentially being discarded by Rams head coach Sean McVay, who had made the quarterback a convenient target for the problems plaguing Los Angeles’ offense.

Now, Goff stands as perhaps Detroit’s clearest path to something the franchise has long chased: the Lombardi Trophy. And in a twist of football fate, his role in Detroit mirrors the one Matthew Stafford plays in Los Angeles: the quarterback becoming the piece a team needed to finally chase the ultimate prize.

Stafford may still have plenty of love for Detroit, but he knew the moment he asked for a trade, he would be cast as the bad guy. He even acknowledged it. That’s simply the strange beauty of the NFL. He moved on, Goff took his place, and somehow, the trade ended up working out for everyone involved.