In what promises to be another NFL offseason highlighted by quarterback movement, the first domino has fallen. The Detroit Lions will send Matthew Stafford to the Los Angeles Rams for Jared Goff, two first-round picks and a third-round pick.
Stafford will get a fresh start after 12 seasons in Detroit, and Rams’ head coach Sean McVay will get a quarterback upgrade.
Stafford’s star has faded as a fantasy quarterback in recent years. Can he get it back with the Rams?
First, let’s dismiss one easy narrative about Stafford. They like to say he’s injury-prone. He did miss significant time in each of his first two NFL seasons, due to knee and shoulder injuries, playing just 13 games total.
From 2011 to halfway through the 2019 campaign, Stafford started every game for the Lions (136 straight regular season starts). A back injury sidelined him for the second half of a lost season for the Lions. Stafford played through a thumb issue in the second half of this year. A Week 16 ankle injury only wound up costing him most of that game.
Stafford finished as QB15 in 2020 (QB16 through Week 16). Over his best stretch (Week 7-Week 13), he was QB11. If you give him his fantasy points per game average for the season in that Week 16 game, he would have been QB13. That would have been less than six fantasy points behind QB12 (Matt Ryan).
Missing the second half of 2019 obscures what Stafford did to that point. From Week 1-Week 9 he was QB6 in fantasy, with top-5 rankings in passing yards (2,499) and touchdowns (19) up to that point. His first season with Darrell Bevell as offensive coordinator led to career-bests in every metric related to throwing downfield. When Bevell took over as interim head coach this year, things shifted that way again.
From 2011-2017 (seven seasons), Stafford was a top-10 fantasy quarterback five times. And he had just one finish outside the top-12 in that span. He faded in 2018 (QB20), but if he hadn’t been injured another top-10 finish was in the offing in 2019.
Stafford is getting a nice set of wide receivers with the Rams. The perpetually underrated Robert Woods and the slightly overrated Cooper Kupp form a nice 1-2 duo. Josh Reynolds and Van Jefferson are good depth. If Reynolds departs in free agency, Jefferson instantly becomes an interesting fantasy sleeper.
Stafford should bring downfield passing back to the Rams’ offense. According to Pro Football Focus, here are his marks on 20-plus yard passes over the last two seasons. The comparison to Goff over the same stretch is an obvious inclusion.
Stafford: 93.0 PFF passing grade (1,869 yards, 13 TD, 6 INT, 13.0 YPA, 98.1 rating)
Goff: 77.6 PFF passing grade (1,011 yards, 4 TD, 6 INT, 9.3 YPA, 55.0 rating)
Play action passing has been a core of McVay’s offense, and Stafford looks like a great fit.
Volume (aided by a bad Lions’ defense) has routinely helped Stafford’s production. So it’s worth noting the Rams’ had the league’s No. 1 yardage defense this year. That said, allowing for essentially one missed game for each of them, Goff had more pass attempts (552) than Stafford (528) this year. The Rams’ defense may naturally regress in 2021, lining Stafford up to throw plenty. Goff led the league in pass attempts in 2019 (626), when the Rams’ defense was great but not awful (13th in yards allowed).
Matthew Stafford 2021 Fantasy Outlook
The bottom line is this. Stafford is easily lined up to finish as a low-end QB1 in 2021. But a top-10 finish is well within range, and with an ADP in the right area when it comes time that’ll be an easy bet to make.
