Patriots' 'Return' For Jimmy Garoppolo Got A Lot More Complicated
By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- It would be foolish, of course, to look at the player selected with the pick acquired in the Jimmy Garoppolo trade and forever look at that player as the "return" for the potential franchise quarterback. That's not really how trades work.
But of course, being foolish has never stopped us from much before. So it's fair to say that many people absolutely would have looked at whichever player was drafted at No. 43 overall on Friday night and forever considered him to be the return piece for Garoppolo.
But fortunately (or unfortunately, I suppose, depending on your perspective), that won't be the case anymore, not after a series of trades basically sliced up that No. 43 overall pick into a handful of little pieces that have been thrown in a blender.
Here's the recap of exactly what has become of Jimmy Garoppolo, as far as the Patriots are concerned.
May 9, 2014
Patriots draft Jimmy Garoppolo in the second round. Garoppolo would spend three-plus seasons in New England. There, his greatest contribution was serving as a permanent inspiration to Tom Brady to continually and psychotically work to stay on top of his game. His second greatest contribution was being handsome. He also played an incredible six quarters of football when Brady was suspended in 2016 (4 TDs, 0 INTs, 496 yards, 119.0 passer rating) and helped make the Patriots' defense better.Oct. 30, 2017
After coming to the realization that Tom Brady will live forever, the Patriots traded Garoppolo to the San Francisco 49ers in the middle of 2017, when Garoppolo was nine weeks away from becoming a free agent. Because this trade took place midseason instead of the previous offseason, the return was relatively low: a second-round pick. Garoppolo himself would devalue that pick, leading the 49ers to five wins at the end of the year after the team had started the year 1-10.March 2, 2018
A coin flip at the NFL combine determined that the second-round pick would be No. 43 overall.April 27, 2018, approximately 7:51 p.m.
When it was time for the Patriots to make their pick at No. 43, they traded the pick to Detroit. In exchange, they received the No. 51 overall pick later in the second round and the No. 117 overall pick in the fourth round. At that point, it still would have been easy to say "Garoppolo yielded the Patriots these two players." Oh, but they weren't done.April 27, 2018, approximately 8:24 p.m.
The Patriots took that 51st pick that they had just acquired and they traded it away. They turned it into No. 105 overall (a third-round pick) as well as a 2019 second-round pick from the Chicago Bears. So the return on Garoppolo now will live on for another year ... at least.April 27, 2018, approximately 8:40 p.m.
After trading away one-half of the initial trade of "the Garoppolo pick," the Patriots traded away the other half. This time, it was to move up instead of down. The Patriots traded the 117th overall pick as well as their own pick at No. 63 in order to move up to get the No. 56 overall pick. They used that pick to select Duke Dawson.
If you were hoping the Patriots would just draft one player at No. 43 overall so that you could forever tag him as the return for Garoppolo, none of this news was a positive development. Alas, life is complicated.
But here's the simplest way to list (at this moment in time) what the Patriots have and will receive in return for Jimmy Garoppolo:
- Cornerback Duke Dawson
- 105th pick of 2018 draft (will be selected ... or traded on Saturday)
- 2019 second-round pick from Chicago
As you might imagine, Patriots director of player personnel Nick Caserio didn't really entertain this storyline when asked about it on Friday night.
"Yeah, you guys will parse that tomorrow. That's not our job," Caserio said. "We're just looking at the picks, looking at numbers, and when the trades come into play, we'll take it as it comes."
We'll get a comprehensive, complete picture of "what the Patriots received in return for Garoppolo" once the second round of next year's draft rolls around. That is, of course, unless Bill Belichick trades that pick as well.
Hopefully he'll trade it for picks in 2020 and 2021. And hopefully he'll trade those picks for selections in future years. If it goes on long enough, the Patriots may still be adding players from the deal long after Garoppolo retires.
SATURDAY UPDATE:
The Patriots ended up trading pick No. 105 to Cleveland in exchange for pick No. 114 and pick No. 178. The Patriots then took that No. 114 pick and traded it for a third-rounder next year from the Lions.
Mercifully, the Patriots used the No. 178 pick to draft linebacker Christian Sam. So we can close the book on the 2018 portion of the Garoppolo return, which we can put like this:
- Cornerback Duke Dawson
- Linebacker Christian Sam
- 2019 second-round pick from Chicago
- 2019 third-round pick from Detroit
It should also be added that in addition to trading away Jimmy Garoppolo to get this return, the Patriots also traded away their own second-round pick, No. 63 overall, in the 2018 draft.
You can email Michael Hurley or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.
