The Rams’ trade of Jared Goff to the Lions for Matthew Stafford was one of the rare win-win trades in NFL history. The Rams won the Super Bowl in Stafford’s first year in Los Angeles, and the Lions used Goff and the three draft picks they obtained in the trade to rebuild a team now a favorite to win Super Bowl LIX.
Stafford, the No. 1 overall pick in 2009, returned to Detroit for the first time in the Rams’ 24-23 loss to the Lions in the wild-card round. Fans booed Stafford and chanted “Ja-red Goff!”
“I feel the crowd 100 percent,” Stafford said, via Gary Klein of the Los Angeles Times. “Motivating factor. Love it.”
The teams meet again Sunday in the season opener at Ford Field, and Stafford is ready for the reception awaiting from the fans who once cheered him.
“I want to hear all of it,” Stafford said. “I want to smell it. I want it to feel like it’s football. That’s part of football, especially going to an away game.
“That stuff just motivates me.”
Stafford, who is entering his 16th season, spent his first 12 seasons in Detroit. It was home . . . until it wasn’t.
He went 25-of-36 for 367 yards with two touchdowns in last January’s playoff game.
Stafford expects to feel more comfortable in the visitor’s locker room and as an enemy of Lions fans this time around.
“I’m going to obviously be one more game comfortable being an opponent in that field than I was, I guess, last year,” Stafford said.