TRAMEL'S TAKE
Tom Brady's Antique Roadshow shows that some teams are only a QB away
The Los Angeles Rams and Detroit Lions swapped quarterbacks over the weekend. Matthew Stafford to LA, Jared Goff to Motown, with assorted high draft picks also headed to the Lions, since Stafford trumps Goff on the quarterback chain.
You can thank Tom Brady and his Florida adventure for such restlessness. Every team this side of the Jets and the Jags believes it's only a quarterback away from Super Bowl glory. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers, without a playoff appearance since 2007 and without a postseason victory since 18 Super Bowls ago, are in the big game with the 43-year-old Brady.
Brady's Antique Roadshow has gone gangbusters. Brady left the New England cocoon in free
agency, the Buccaneers won the sweepstakes and now it's Tampa Bay-Kansas City on Sunday with world domination at stake.
Free-agent quarterbacks indeed can kickstart a gridiron revival. Peyton Manning in Denver. Drew Brees in New Orleans. Warren Moon in Houston. Rich Gannon in Oakland. Tampa Bay itself won that previous Super Bowl with a free-agent QB, Brad Johnson.
But it's not easy for quality quarterbacks to hit the market. Sometimes, trades are their only option. And phenom Deshaun Watson has embraced the James Harden model, demanding a a trade out of Houston. NFL franchises from the Golden Gate to South Beach sniff Super Bowl 56 if they can pry Watson from the Texans.
It figures to be a volatile off-season for NFL quarterbacks. It's possible that more than half the teams in the league could be changing QBs.
Which quarterbacks are set in stone for 2021? Kansas City's Patrick Mahomes. Seattle's Russell Wilson. Buffalo's Josh Allen. Baltimore's Lamar Jackson. Cincinnati's Joe Burrow. Brady. Is that it? Even Green Bay's Aaron Rodgers cast a shadow on his status.
Young cornerstones Justin Herbert with the Chargers and Kyler Murray with the Cardinals would seemingly be untouchable, but with Watson on the market, anything seems possible. Cleveland seems ready to build a statue of Baker Mayfield on the shores of Lake Erie, but even some Browns fans are calling for a Watson trade. Status doesn't last long.
Last February, Jimmy Garoppolo was minutes away from being the 49ers' Super Bowlwinning quarterback. Now it appears San Francisco is ready to cut the cord.
Two Februarys ago, Goff had the Rams in the Super Bowl. Now Goff is in the purgatory of Detroit.
But impatience on the part of quarterbacks and their employers is nothing new. Before the advent of free agency, trading great quarterbacks happened from time to time.
Here are four Hall of Fame quarterbacks, traded in their prime.
• In 1958, the Lions traded Bobby Layne to Pittsburgh, a year after Detroit won the NFL title. Layne was injured down the stretch of 1957, Tobin Rote quarterbacked the Lions in the championship game and Layne grew sideways with Detroit coach George Wilson. But still, Layne had quarterbacked the Lions to NFL titles in 1952 and 1953, then a league title game in 1954.
Detroit sent Layne to Pittsburgh for the young Earl Morrall and two draft picks. Layne, 31, still could play. He quarterbacked the Steelers to a 27-19-2 record over the next five seasons, and that was a Pittsburgh franchise with one playoff game in its 25-year history before Layne's arrival.
• Also in 1958, the Rams traded quarterback Norm Van Brocklin to the Eagles for offensive tackle Buck Lansford, safety Jimmy Harris (yep, the former Sooner quarterback) and a first-round draft pick.
Van Brocklin, 32, was a nine-year Ram and perhaps the NFL's best passer. But Van Brocklin and Rams coach Sid Gillman quarreled, so Van Brocklin went to Philadelphia and quarterbacked the Eagles to the 1960 NFL title.
• In 1964, the Eagles traded Sonny Jurgensen, 29, to Washington for quarterback Norm Snead, 24. Jurgensen had been a trainingcamp holdout the year before, and Snead was a solid prospect. But Snead never became more than a journeyman. Jurgensen became a Washington star.
• In 1967, the Vikings traded Fran Tarkenton to the Giants, after friction between Tarkenton and his coach, Van Brocklin. Minnesota got two first-round and two second-round draft picks.
The Vikings already were building a ferocious defense, and two of those Giant draft picks brought in cornerstone offensive linemen Ron Yary and Ed White. The 1969 Vikings made the Super Bowl with Joe Kapp at quarterback. But Kapp wasn't a longterm solution.
In 1972, the Giants traded Tarkenton back to Minnesota. He had made the Pro Bowl four times in five New York seasons, and the Giants got Snead, two players, a first-round draft pick and a secondround draft pick for Tarkenton. Minnesota went to three Super Bowls in the next four seasons.
NFL franchises don't trade like that much anymore. Quarterbacking is too valuable. But times change. The player-empowerment of other sports reaches football.
And suddenly the Lions grant Stafford's trade request, and Watson seeks a trade out of Houston, and more than half the league looks at Brady's Buccaneers, knowing that a simple change at quarterback could mean a Super Bowl.
Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-7608080 or at btramel@ oklahoman.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. Support his work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.