- Joined
- Sep 13, 2004
- Messages
- 9,346
- Reaction score
- 7,939
Agreed on most. I'd like to hear any thoughts on the bolded?
So here’s how I see it.
I go back to when Jimmy Garoppolo was traded. The Pats got a second rounder for him, which was a really poor return. Couldn’t they have got more for him? If you look at his tape from 2016 when he replaced Brady (especially the first quarter of the game against Miami) there is no doubt that you are looking at an NFL-ready quarterback. Needy teams will use first-round picks on college QBs whom they know may or may not pan out. So only a second for Garoppolo? It’s ridiculous.
The reason is that this was a fire sale. The Pats knew they couldn’t keep Garoppolo and Brady so they had to get what they could and all of the other teams knew that too. But why did the Pats only realize that in the middle of the 17 season? Why didn’t they have an auction at the draft when they’d have got much more. My explanation is that at that time Belichick thought that he was about to make the transition to Garoppolo from Brady.
At this point, it becomes very speculative. Did BB think he was going to trade Tom and have the trade vetoed by the Krafts? Or did he think that he had a “gentleman’s agreement” with Tom that he would go after the Atlanta Super Bowl only for Tom, having played the greatest game ever, to change his mind? Either is compatible with observed behaviour. Whoever was responsible, after that, the behind-the-scenes snippiness between Belichick and Brady (can Alex Guerrero fly on the Pats plane or not?) becomes completely understandable, and it’s probably right that Tom should have now moved on (but thanks for that extra Super Bowl!)
I do have some criticisms to make of both sides, though. Having traded Garoppolo, Belichick then didn’t take a quarterback in 2018 until the 7th round (the immortal Danny Etling) and in 2019 until the 4th. Had he given up on the idea of building for the future or was trying to make a point to the Krafts? And Tom could have made things a lot easier this summer if he had made it clear from the start that he wanted to leave instead of messing people around with mixed signals until the last minute.
But even amazingly successful grown men don’t always behave reasonably, and the Brady-Belichick combination has been the most successful partnership I can think of between any coach and player in any sport -- the fact that it came to a less-than-harmonious end shouldn’t take away from that.
So here we are now, hoping against hope that Cam Newton can re-discover his throwing arm or that Jarrett Stidham is going to grow into glory.