Madden Sim live: Jared Goff’s Detroit Lions vs. Matthew Stafford’s LA Rams

Four years ago, our friend and editor Ryan Mathews came up with a horrible thought experiment. If Matthew Stafford was on any other team, would he have all the team accolades of a top-tier franchise quarterback? MVP titles, playoff wins, and possibly even a Super Bowl?

Of course, there was no way to literally know this as face, so he decided to take matters into his own hand and trade Stafford to literally every other team in Madden NFL 17 and simulated out a few virtual seasons. The results... well, I won’t spoil them for you. Read it all here.

Now, sadly, that simulation has become a reality, as Stafford will spend his foreseeable future in Los Angeles with a legitimate shot at a Lombardi Trophy. It’s a bittersweet future we must all face. Stafford has been the face of the franchise for a dozen years, and he’s been everything you want in a leader and community activist... but just never got those wins.

But now the Lions must move forward with Jared Goff as their guy for at least the next season or two. With not much of a surrounding cast around him, it’s hard to see Goff even reaching the level of success Stafford had in Detroit, but the NFL is weird and you never really know for sure.

So instead of waiting until September to see how this all plays out, let’s take a sneak peek by going back to the Madden machine.

Join us at 10:30 a.m. ET on Twitch or YouTube, as we simulate the Detroit Lions led by Jared Goff against Matthew Stafford the Los Angeles Rams in Madden 21.

It’s going to be a horrible time.

You can watch us live on Twitch with the embedded video below.