For two straight years, as the Los Angeles Rams were chasing Super Bowls, Jared Goff was on a team that made trade deadline deals to acquire big-name players who energized the locker room.
In 2018, the Rams traded two draft picks to the Jacksonville Jaguars for pass rusher Dante Fowler. A year later, a week after trading for help on their offensive line, they went even bigger and sent two first-round picks to the Jaguars for Jalen Ramsey.
“I’ve been on both sides of it,” Goff said Wednesday. “I’ve been in the acquiring and I’ve been in the losing a player. I think it’s hard to explain, but each decision is made in the best interests of the team and you have to trust that and you have to believe that. That’s the only way you can move forward.
“And with that, when we acquired in L.A., we traded away players, too. So you don’t know, is this going to work? Who knows? But it’s always trusting of upstairs and being a good player and good teammate.”
Birkett:Detroit Lions get meager return for T.J. Hockenson, set up for big future payoff
A day after the Detroit Lions sent tight end T.J. Hockenson to their division rival Minnesota Vikings for a swap of draft picks, several of Hockenson’s former teammates expressed surprise at the deal but faith in where the Lions are headed this year and beyond.
Goff opened his weekly Wednesday news conference by addressing the move. He called Hockenson “a tremendous player” and said he was “a guy that I grew close with,” but did his best to evade other questions on the topic.
When asked if trading away his top target — Hockenson leads the Lions with 395 yards receiving on 26 catches — signaled to players the front office was giving up on the season, Goff said, “I opened it up (talking about Hockenson) so that we didn’t have to do this and I respectfully, it’s not my decision. I’m a player here and I do my best every day and it’s up to them.”
More:Detroit Lions’ Brad Holmes: I would have made T.J. Hockenson trade ‘if our record was reversed’
“It sucks going through that as a teammate, mostly just seeing him in the building every day, not being able to be around him,” Goff said. “But yeah, I wish him the best and I know he’ll be successful in doing his thing. Happy for him and hope everything works out for him.”
Lions receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown said the thought that the front office was waiving a white flag on the season never crossed his mind until receivers coach Antwaan Randle El addressed it in his position group meeting Wednesday.
Lions coach Dan Campbell said he is not worried about the message the trade sends to the locker room, and he told players Hockenson’s departure more opportunities for them.
And Lions safety DeShon Elliott said trades are part of the business of football and he does not see them as anything more or less.
“Football being just about football, it’s not a thing anymore,” he said. “It’s a business and whatever happens, happens and we’re just going to keep rolling with the punches. We got the guys in the locker room to get it done, we just got to get it done.”
Randle El said the Lions could use more four- and five-receiver sets to replace Hockenson, and Campbell said there are things the offense will do better now that Hockenson is gone.
Brock Wright and rookie fifth-round pick James Mitchell likely will see an uptick in playing time at the tight end position, and Jason Cabinda will factor into the mix once he comes off the physically unable to perform list.
Mitchell said he was “pretty shocked” to see Hockenson was traded when he got a notification on his phone Tuesday. After playing 21 offensive snaps in the season’s first seven games as he was recovering from a torn ACL, Mitchell, who caught his first NFL pass last week, said he is ready for a bigger role in the second half of the season to help replace Hockenson’s production on the field.
“I’m definitely ready for the next step,” he said. “Obviously it came in a way that you didn’t necessarily want, but that’s how it goes and they’re expecting me to take some more reps so I got to be ready for that.”
Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.