I just don't know why you would trade Garoppolo this offseason when you have a 40 year old QB. Maybe Brady can play for another 3-5 years, but I don't think you can make any long term assumptions. What if he suffers a significant injury that requires a long rehab? Would he come back to the game after a year off? A first round pick is great but if you think you have a possible successor to Brady, the value to the franchise should be taken very seriously. Just look at other teams in the league and how long it has taken some to find a decent QB and they are still searching (eg, Jets, Buffalo, Cleveland). The previous QBs that were drafted by NE (3rd round picks) were relative busts (O'Connell, Mallett). It is not easy to draft and develop a QB. If the front office thinks they have one in Garoppolo, they should exhaust every measure to hang onto him for now.
Well, first of all: no one outside the organization (BB, Staff, Front Office, Brady himself, " insiders") is in position to predict accurately how long he's going to play at his elite level, so we are all speculating at this point, but if you ask a football fan unaware of Brady's age (from another parallel world), he would probably say the QB of the navy blue team wearing #12 must be 34-35 year old. Brady is a unique specimen in terms of dedication to his craft / work ethic / life hygiene, and you can't simply take some previous QBs as a comparison to project how much time he will keep playing as an elite passer through his 40's. He's no Brett Favre, he's no Pate Manning, he's the one every young/future NFL QBs are/will be regarding as the model to follow. If everybody involved in the process of the decision to be made about Gropp thinks Brady likely has 3-5 elite years left, then JG would be projected as the backup at least until 2019. To manage to keep JG as a long term successor, you would have to : 1- convince him to spend his 5-6 first years in the League as a backup (2-3 additional years since figuring he's ready to be a capable starter), 2- make him accept a creative long term deal, 3- make Brady accept to give up some QT/HT/Starts here and there in the next seasons, otherwise Garoppolo might tend to regress/lose patience. Brady would be your ace pitcher and Gropp your bottom-of-the-rotation/relieving pitcher.
Keeping both QBs long-term would be the ideal situation but it seems unlikely that both the Organization and Gropp would accept (the Pats: to allocate the cap it would take, JG: to stay as a backup while he would be at least an above average starter elsewhere).
The wait-and-see approach (keeping JG in 2017 and maybe franchising him in 2018) would likely result in missing the opportunity to get a high 1st round in 2017 (and to make the most of the remaining GOAT HC/QB window) vs. having to settle for a 3rd round comp pick in 2018 or 2019. The difference between those two draft compensations is the price they would have to pay for your 1-2 year QB injury/decline insurance. Considering that: 1- the probability of Brady enduring a season ending injury is relatively low (happened only one time in 15 seasons as a starter), 2- you have no guarantee JG would be able to win AFCCGs / SBs, 3- the rest of the roster is still young with a core of quality starters possibly locked for the foreseable future after the 2017 free agency (so wasting a season because of a QB injury would not necessarily put the dynasty to an end), and considering on the other that draft picks are only virtual assets (no guarantee of success for the players drafted/acquired), the question is: is such an insurance worth that price (draft capital surrendered) ?
Of course, this reasoning and the decision that will results are based on "how much Brady has left in the tank ?". I guess Brady has too much loyalty and love for the franchise to purposely (or even unconsciously) overestimate his durability and to put his proverbial love for the game of football ahead of the best interest of the franchise. In other words, I hope he will be aware enough of his body to call the final "time out" of his career before the "delay of game". But even if he eventually proves wrong and costs us 2-3 tough transition years (a la Broncos), I would easily forgive him.
Whatever our opinions are about the "Brady/JG case", we probably all agree on one thing: this may be the most crucial business decision the franchise will have to make in the Kraft Era (trading Bledsoe was a no brainer).
