Detroit Lions apparently made an unbelievable request in Matthew Stafford trade talks

Early in talks with the Rams about sending Matthew Stafford to Los Angeles, the Detroit Lions apparently made an unbelievable ask.

The Detroit Lions, about to enter into a rebuild, sent quarterback Matthew Stafford to the Los Angeles Rams for Jared Goff and three draft picks in 2021. Those facts are dry and obvious, and the Lions let Stafford pick his destination to the point he reportedly stopped a deal to the Carolina Panthers.

Apparently the Lions asked for a more prominent player than Goff in that deal.

Charles Robinson of Yahoo! Sports recently appeared on the “You Pod To Win The Game” podcast, and for some reason they went into the deeper workings of the Stafford trade.

Credit to Heavy.com for the quotes.

"The Lions and Rams had already had talks about Stafford. They were a little crazy because initially Detroit was like ‘well, can we get Aaron Donald in this deal?’ and the Rams were like ‘yeah no. That’s definitely not going to happen,’”"

Did the Detroit Lions really make an unbelievable request early in the Matthew Stafford trade talks?

Robinson is a reputable reporter, so he surely had a source he trusts tell him the Lions asked for future Hall of Fame defensive tackle Aaron Donald in initial talks about a deal for Stafford. But there’s no way the Rams were going to trade Donald, and then-new general manager Brad Holmes, who worked for the Rams for a long time before becoming the Lions’ general manager, certainly knew that.

So does it make sense for Holmes/the Lions to have asked for Donald in exchange for Stafford? It reeks of the old rumors that 49ers’ general manager John Lynch asked the Patriots if Tom Brady was available before trading for Jimmy Garoppolo, in a “you don’t know unless you ask” fashion.

So the ask may have happened, fully knowing it’d be rejected. But it just had to be asked on the .00001 percent chance (if even that good a chance) the Rams said they’d part with Donald.

It’s easy to doubt the Lions actually asked for Donald if they were going to send Stafford to the Rams. Too easy, really. So it’s so unbelievable that no reporter worth his salt would put it out there unless they had heard it directly from one of the prominent players in the trade talks, right? Right?