Sean McVay Reflects on Poor, Amateur Treatment of Jared Goff

Sean McVay again expresses remorse for how he treated Jared Goff.

Detroit Lions quarterback Jared Goff (16) and Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay greet each other | Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images

Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay has reflected on several occasions and has taken accountability for the poor treatment of quarterback Jared Goff, when it was decided the team was going to include him in a deal for Matthew Stafford.

Appearing on "The Bussin' With The Boys" podcast this week, the offensive guru revealed in greater detail how immature he felt in the manner he easily dealt a player without really giving any advanced notice.

“I’m super sensitive to what an amateur I was with the Goff situation, trading him," McVay explained. "You say, ‘Well, why do you say that?’ You want to talk about lack of courage, lack of clarity, lack of ability to be able to look someone in the eye that you’ve had a lot of really cool experiences with and tell him, ‘Hey, not easy to say, but we might explore an opportunity to acquire Matthew Stafford, and you’ll be part of a trade there.’ But instead, it’s kind of like, you kind of get frustrated and it was more really about me than it was ever him.

"I had a lot of things that I needed to be able to work through, and I didn’t handle that the right way," McVay added further. "And I’m not saying that we wouldn’t have made the decision, but the handling of it was exactly the antithesis of how I would hope to handle things moving forward. I don’t run away from that."

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Sean McVay talked about how he handled the TRADE situation with Detroit Lions QB Jared Goff 👀

“I’m super SENSITIVE to what an amateur I was with the GOFF situation… would I do it differently NOW? Absolutely”

(🎥: @BussinWTB | #OnePride) pic.twitter.com/orJsdpdkJZ

— Crunch Time Sports (@officialctpod) May 20, 2026

Caught off guard

What bothered the veteran signal-caller the most and what caused the veteran coach the most regret was causing Goff to feel he was completely caught off guard.

McVay now understands the burden of stress and emotional turmoil he could have helped Goff avoid, had he simply just kept an open line of communication about his status with the organization.

“There’s a lot of stuff that goes on. I think the important thing is to operate with clarity for people. You say, ‘Okay, so what do you mean by that?’ I was frustrated. Did I ever have the courage to sit him down after that season in 2020 and tell him, ‘Hey, there’s a possibility that we’ll explore some avenues that might lead to you not being our quarterback moving forward?' No," said McVay. "Would I do it differently now? Absolutely.

"I think the biggest thing that I learned that he was able to share, and I appreciate his honesty on all of that, and there is nobody to blame but myself. But it was really like, what did he not like the most about it? He was caught off guard.”