Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell sat down on the Coach2Coach with Jason Garrett podcast and opened up about the trade that quietly changed everything for the franchise. Getting rid of his best player in 2021 was not easy. But Campbell said it was necessary.

“You find out pretty quickly that Matt Stafford – we’re going to need to trade him away,” Campbell said on the podcast. “Really, that move set up everything that set up what we really are now, because it gave us the draft capital. It gave us a quarterback, a young quarterback, and Jared Goff. And it’s hard to do it because Stafford’s the best player on this team by a long shot.”

The trade was made on January 31, 2021. 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.

Stafford spent 12 years of his career in Detroit. He left as the franchise’s all-time leader in passing yards, touchdowns, and completions. But the Lions had missed the playoffs in nine of his last ten seasons, and Stafford himself asked for the trade after 2020 ended. He told WDIV in 2021 that it was the “hardest conversation” he’d ever had.

“I told Sheila Ford, who’s you know, been unbelievable in this. 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,” Campbell said.

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, while Stafford’s last playoff appearance as a Lion was in 2016.

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.

“It was one of those things where, you know, we were hoping that — golly, let’s go, I hope this thing takes off and we play great,” he told the Free Press. “But if it doesn’t, you just knew what was going to happen. They were going to tear it down and rebuild. … And I, frankly, 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 him 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 in his very first year with them, 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.