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Carmen Vitali
NFC North Reporter
No matter what happens in Sunday’s divisional round showdown in Detroit, the NFC Championship Game will be started by a quarterback who was once given up on.
Detroit Lions quarterback Jared Goff was the afterthought in a trade that sent then-Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford to the Los Angeles Rams. The former Rams first-round pick was offered as a consolation prize and left for dead in Detroit. With a new caffeine-guzzling coach in Dan Campbell talking about biting kneecaps upon his hiring, the Lions went 3-13 in Goff’s first season.
Meanwhile, Stafford won a Super Bowl.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield, like Goff, was drafted first overall. Within the first three seasons, Mayfield led the Cleveland Browns to their first postseason appearance since 2002. He won a game, too. Yet, a year later, Mayfield was cast aside for Deshaun Watson. The team elected to give Watson a fully guaranteed $240 million contract despite Watson missing the previous season entirely and incurring a 12-game suspension to start the 2022 season stemming from 26 sexual assault charges. They let Mayfield go.
Mayfield landed in Carolina first, didn’t stick, and then finally (ironically) in Los Angeles to fill in for an injured Stafford. The Rams won just one game with Baker as the starter, but there was a flash in a 51-14 Week 15 win over the Denver Broncos. Mayfield still had something.
Yet the Rams let Mayfield go and he hit free agency where he was picked up by the Bucs, to walk in the shadow of the retired Tom Brady for a measly $4 million deal.
This is where our story picks up, though.
Less than a year later, Mayfield is still standing in the divisional round of the NFC playoffs. Stafford is not.
What’s more, Stafford was knocked out by Goff and his band of Lions brothers in one of the most storyline-rich games of the season. Goff delivered something to Detroit this past Sunday that Stafford…
Source link : https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/jared-goff-baker-mayfield-battle-of-the-misfits
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Publish date : 2024-01-17 18:26:24
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