Sean McVay Regrets How He Handled The Jared Goff Trade
In 2018, just his second year as an NFL head coach, Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay coached QB Jared Goff to a 13-3 record and a trip to the Super Bowl. Three years later, he helped ship Goff out of LA and into Detroit, where he has mostly thrived since.
But despite managing to win a Super Bowl in his first year with Goff's replacement, Matthew Stafford, McVay still has some sore feelings about he handled the Goff trade at the time.
Appearing on Bussin' With The Boys, McVay admitted that he wasn't up front with Goff enough about the situation and lacked the courage to tell him that he was seeking other quarterbacks to lead his team. He said he regrets how he initially left things with his former starting QB.
"I'm super sensitive to what an amateur I was with the Goff situation, trading him," McVay said. "You want to talk about lack of courage, lack of clarity, lack of ability to be able to look somebody in the eye that you've had a lot of really cool experiences with and tell him, ‘Hey, not easy to say, but we might explore an opportunity to acquire Matthew Stafford, and you'll be a part of a trade there.' But instead, it's like you kind of get frustrated, and it was more really about me than it was about him. I had a lot of things that I had to work through, and I didn't handle that the right way. I'm not saying we wouldn't have made the decision, but the handling of it was exactly the antithesis of how I would hope to handle things going forward."
Goff and McVay
McVay made it clear that he wants to "operate with clarity for people." He said that if he could go back, he would have done it differently.
"The important thing is to operate with clarity for people," McVay said. "Did I have the courage to sit him down after that season in 2020 and tell him there's a possibility we might explore some avenues that might lead to you not being our quarterback going forward? No. Would I handle it different now? Absolutely."
McVay said that he's heard what Goff has said about how things were left between him and the Rams and said that he respects Goff for his honesty. He said he blames himself for how things turn out.
"I appreciate his honesty in all of that," McVay said. "There was nobody to blame but myself."
Goff may have gotten a raw deal in the moment, but he's adapted well to his new environment. He's coming off his fourth straight winning season with the Lions, becoming No. 2 on the team's all-time passing charts.
And at 31 years of age, Goff has the capacity to play another decade in Detroit if he stays healthy.
While missing out on winning a Super Bowl with McVay might haunt him later, he's likely to retire as one of the all-time greats in Detroit sports history.
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This story was originally published May 20, 2026 at 1:20 PM.