Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - LOCKED ON PATRIOTS - Aug. 4, 2016 - Jimmy Garoppolo's four starts have massive financial, draft implications

Episode Date: August 4, 2016

Jeff Howe discusses Jimmy Garoppolo's four-week stint as the starter and how that will serve as a launching pad for his career, as well as the importance it has for the future of the Patriots' franchise. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, where are you going, Jim? The elevator's over here. Taking the stairs. But our meeting's up on 8. Yeah, I know. But that's 8 floors up. That's like 8 times... I don't... a lot of stairs. That's the point. I've already lost a few pounds and earned almost $100 in wellness incentives. Whoa, you're getting rewarded for working out? Yeah, I know. I'm just as surprised as you are, Bob.

Fearless is full of surprises. That's the power of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Federal Employee Program. Learn more about our healthy benefits and sign up at fepblue.org slash choose blue by December 11th. What's going on? This is Locked On Patriots. My name is Jeff Howe, and this is the second edition of Locked On Patriots, your new daily Patriots podcast. Again, my name is Jeff Howe. If you somehow stumbled into this corner of the internet and didn't find it on my Twitter feed, I've been the Patriots beat reporter for the Boston Herald for the last five seasons. I've covered the team overall since 2009. And this is a new project that we started up with Locked On Sports and really excited about it. So before I get into the brunt of the show and the main topic that I want to hit on for a

few minutes, I just want to say that I want to hit on for a few minutes, I just want to say that I want to close down the week with Friday's podcast. This is, I should have gotten to this earlier, I'm new to this thing, so the format's going to be a little all over the place until I get my feet settled here. This is Thursday, August 4th. So when I close down the week on Friday, August 5th, that's how the calendar works, what I want to do is incorporate a lot more Twitter feedback. I want to reach out to you guys. I want questions on Twitter.

And really, unless anything crazy happens during Thursday's practice that would trump this idea I have, I want the show to be run by Twitter questions. And I'll answer as many as I can throughout the show. And again, that's something and I'll answer as many as I can throughout the show. And again, that's something I want to incorporate as much as possible. I truly enjoy you guys. I appreciate you so much out there on Twitter. We have a lot of fun together. I have continuously referred to my Twitter feed as one gigantic internet keg party.

And look, I think we all have fun together, and it's as much, I just want to, I want to be as engaging through this podcast with you guys as much as I possibly can. So, with that in mind, hit me up with your questions all day. On Thursday, I'll probably tape that podcast later in the afternoon, if not into the night. But what I want to get to is more of what I wrote about in Thursday's Herald, the future of Jimmy Garoppolo. Now, we don't need to beat the deflacate thing into the ground here, but we know Garoppolo's starting four games to start the season. And we know Jimmy Garoppolo has looked really strong so far at the start of training camp. Six practices in, Garoppolo's completed 76% of his passes. He's only got three interceptions, and two of those were the result of drops by his receivers percent of his passes he's only got three interceptions and two of those

were the result of drops by his receivers so really he's only thrown one truly bad pass out of 117 in team drills that's good now the 76 completion percentage that's not going to stick that's just a good number that's a good you usually want to be between 75 and 80 percent if you're a good quarterback from what I've tracked so far in training camp over the years. So that's a good number to be at. And he's doing it without Julian Edelman, without Rob Gronkowski, without Deion Lewis. And for the last couple of practices, Chris Hogan. The last three practices, Keyshawn Martin.

So he's throwing to guys like Aaron Dobson, DeAndre Carter, Chris Harper. Those two guys aren't going to make the roster. Dobson right now might sneak in, but Garoppolo's throwing to a lot of different players and not all of them are going to be employed in September. So he's doing it just like Brady is with an assortment of players who just, again, it's not like Garoppolo is having success so far this summer because of the system. It's because of him. He's making some amazing throws. He threw a touchdown pass to Aaron Dobson during Wednesday's practice, where Dobson beat Malcolm Butler to the right corner of the end zone. Garoppolo went through his reads. You could see him looking over the middle of the field, and then you could see as Dobson came out of his break toward the baseline of the end zone.

He looked over, was patient enough to wait for Dobson to clear the linebacker in the second level. And then threw a beauty right through a needle. I had another great pass to Dobson on a deep crossing pattern during Monday night's practice inside the stadium. A deep crossing pattern. Again, threaded it through a needle three levels of defenders and he's the kid's good the kid is good Jimmy Garoppolo can play some football now there's obviously the caveat that we have no idea how these practice reps are going to translate to the game fields now he had a he had a very very rookie camp, spring set of workouts,

and then the first week and a half of training camp his rookie year was abysmal, about as bad as I've ever seen, and then he kind of turned it on, and the first time we really got to see him in extended action, other than that Chiefs game really, was that Bills game at the end of the season, and he was bad. So he's got two more years or I should say he's got a full season in addition to that Bills game in addition to the Chiefs game when he looked good clearly but what I'm trying to say is as good as he's looked in practice

we're still just projecting but I think what we've seen and what I've what I know about the way his teammates feel about him his receivers feel about him the way he carries himself you don't have to worry about the work ethic he's he's just an A-plus character guy and he's so consistent at practice he avoids those long slumps he doesn't get himself into trouble like he did even really last summer when he would have days when the interceptions would come in bunches or you know one interception would throw off a couple of team drill a couple periods of team drills that's it's not a problem for Garoppolo right now sometimes he's answering interceptions with four five six completions in a row he'll fire it right back down the field very similar to the way Tom Brady likes

to respond and practice from interceptions so again I, I like what I see, and I think Garoppolo is going to have a lot of success. Everybody's looking at that Arizona game and saying, all right, you know, I shouldn't say everybody's chalking it up as a loss. I wouldn't be so sure. That's a good defense. There's no doubt about it. It could even be a shootout because of the high-powered offense that the Cardinals have. But Bill Belichick has Jimmy Garoppolo for 46 days preparing for that game. Garoppolo could come flying out of the gates because they're going to look at that Cardinals defense quite a bit, probably just about every day of those 46 days going into that opener. So all of this is sort of building towards Jimmy Garoppolo having a good

run for the first four games of his season. And what does that mean afterward? Now, let's say Tom Brady comes back. We know Tom Brady's coming back in week five. And look, I hate to play the, oh, if he gets injured game, because that's stupid. Anybody can get injured. Tom Brady's going to come back and he's going to continue to play at a Hall of Fame level.

Yeah, he turned 39 on Wednesday. Tom Brady has never shown any signs of slowing down because of his accelerated age. And the argument that, oh, well, John Elway and Peyton Manning and yada, yada, yada. Brett Favre. These guys have all slowed down in their late 30s or once they get into 40 in some of their cases. Tom Brady has not followed their career trajectories. He had quite possibly the best fourth quarter in Super Bowl history to beat the Seahawks two years ago. He had, following really, what could have been an MVP campaign

if Aaron Rodgers wasn't so good in 2014. Brady was probably the leader in the MVP race for about, let's say 10 to 12 games in 2015 before Julian Edelman went down and Dion Lewis went down and then Rob Gronkowski went down for a brief period but hobbled down the stretch when he came back on a gimpy leg. And then Cam Newton played tremendously and was a deserving MVP. So this is a guy who has continued to play at an MVP caliber level and, again, is not even two years removed,

or I guess if you really want to look at it, is about 18 months removed from, again, is not even two years removed, or I guess if you really want to look at it, is about 18 months removed from, again, the greatest fourth quarter in Super Bowl history from a quarterback perspective. So I'm not going to play the, well, you have to be worried about Brady's age catching up to him. Until I see signs, I'm not going to play that game. So again, we're building up here. I'm slowly, slowly backing into it. What does this four-game stretch mean for Garoppolo's future? I think as long as Garoppolo plays well, he's as good as gone. And that's a good thing for him, and it's a good thing for the Patriots. You look at what

teams have been able to do on the trade market going into the draft and i think we'll just keep it simple keep it at the two guys the two teams that traded up for the top two picks in april's draft to get jared garth uh goff and carson wentz i combined goff and wentz's carson's name there uh into one which was fun anyway good internet exercise i'm gonna stop rambling the the uh the rams gave up two first round picks, two second round picks, two third round picks to get the number one and then a four and a six. The Eagles gave up two first rounders and then a second, third and fourth rounder to get the second pick of the draft. Now, Wentz is the guy I kind of want to focus on here because Wentz is the ultimate project. People, draft analysts were very skeptical of his career trajectory.

How good could he really be? He's a project. He's not going to be able to start in year one, most likely. And he's only 13 months younger than Jimmy Garoppolo. So I kept going back to that this offseason, really going up to the draft

and saying, if a team like the Eagles was going to give up that much in draft collateral to get Carson Wentz when you could have given up less to get Jimmy Garoppolo not saying Garoppolo was on the market or anything like that but he could have been or they could have at least picked up the phone and called the Patriots for a guy who has two more years of NFL experience which is potentially what it's going to take Wentz to see from the sidelines before he really gets a feel for the NFL game and the offense and all that stuff.

And if you kind of want to do the math in terms of Garoppolo being 13 months older, I mean, by the time Carson Wentz is ready to start, you could say in NFL years he's going to be older than Garoppolo. Now, hopefully that made sense. It made sense in my mind. A lot of things do when they make no sense to anybody else, but I'm just trying to talk you through it here. So the Patriots aren't going to get that type of haul. Now let's say Garoppolo plays well enough to get them to three and one in that stretch, which I think is a pretty good benchmark, even if they go two and two. Now, Brock Osweiler had seven starts, eight total games last year for the Broncos.

Played pretty well, but didn't put up spectacular numbers. He put up good numbers, but they weren't spectacular. Went out into the free agent market and got a four-year $72 million deal. So look at what teams are giving up for unproven, now albeit young, quarterbacks. Quarterbacks that they can develop. They're going to be chasing after Garoppolo in February at the Combine, in March when their phones are going to start lighting up even more, and the Patriots are going to be in the driver's seat.

Now this is assuming Garoppolo doesn't completely faceplant weeks one through four, which I don't think anybody expects to happen. So let's, we're still, we're operating under the assumption that Garoppolo plays well enough to draw interest. And I think there's going to be a lot of it because there's a quarterback epidemic in the NFL right now and teams that have a chance to get one are going to overpay to do it.

So because Garoppolo was a second round pick, you know the Patriots aren't getting anything less than that in return for his services. I think you have to keep a first round pick on the board maybe they can get a one and a three and if Garoppolo plays absolutely lights out through week four then you know what maybe you're talking about even more than that so the Patriots would be in a good position to trade Garoppolo going into the final year of his contract low cap number another team would have his rights again through 2017 they'd probably give him the contract extension before he even plays a game but in the event that things kind of fall apart

at least they're going to have his rights under control so i think that puts all i think that puts the patriots and garoppolo in in in a good state of mind going into this process. Now, you've heard, why don't the Patriots just try to lock up Garoppolo? I think that's a dumb argument. I really do. I'm not trying to put anybody down here, but I thought this from day one, even before Brady signed the two-year extension through 2019. If you've got a Tom Brady who is still playing at a high level, even if he is starting to taper off, or if he does start to taper off you keep tom brady around i'm not going to entertain the trade tom brady trade uh trade tom brady thoughts that's just i'm not going down that road that's not the argument i'm going to make right now at this point

in time i don't know if i'll ever make it but it isn't happening in the near future i'm operating under the the assumption that tom brady is sticking around with the Patriots for the foreseeable future and for all intents and purposes through 2019 when his deal expires. So why would the Patriots be happy if Garoppolo was willing to sign on to be a backup for the first six years of his career? Wouldn't that be a red flag? Wouldn't you sit there and say, wait, this kid has come across as the ultimate competitor, a guy who is prepared to be a starter, like he has said since day one walking into the Patriots facility, and then all of a sudden he signs a contract that says, you know what, I'm cool with being a backup for the first six years of my career because there's no way I'm leapfrogging

Tom Brady. So Garoppolo's not going to sign that deal, and the Patriots shouldn't want him to want to sign that deal. The other side of it is the money. Again, I mentioned Osweiler. Four years, $72 million. Sam Bradford just re-signed with the Eagles. Two years, $35 million. There's no reason to believe if Garoppolo plays competently for four games this season that he's not going to get at least $18 million in average annual value once he's able to negotiate the terms of his own deal. Now, if that happens after a trade in March, let's say, then he is going to get the chance to negotiate his own deal because there isn't a team that's going to trade for a guy

and then not want to have him under their control, especially if you're talking about giving up a first-round pick. So Garoppolo's in the driver's seat there, and I think the patriots should want to get it done this offseason because of the contract now there is another scenario now let's say tom brady does start to taper off a little bit we i'll entertain that just for this thought only and and garoppolo plays lights out if the patriots say all right brissette probably isn't ready to take over in the event

that they need their backup to step into duty in 2017 so now we're going a full season ahead of ourselves here but in the in this hypothetical situation they say all right I'm going to keep Garoppolo around through the end of his contract just in case because his career is clearly on the rise he looks like the next big thing a legitimate starting quarterback because of the four games that they had seen in weeks one through four and they're not entirely sure how much Tom Brady has left which again I can't stress enough I don't foresee happening but this is the hypothetical so the Patriots want to keep him through 2017 in that event you could see a repeat of the Matt Castle situation. Played well

in 2008. They put the franchise tag on him in February of 2009 and then traded him to the Chiefs along with Mike Rabel for a second round pick. So I could see the Patriots potentially doing that. There is more of an obstacle in that type of situation though because if you franchise Garoppolo, just kind of looking at the way the franchise tag has risen from 2014 to 15 and 16 I was projecting the quarterback franchise number in 2018 to be 22 million dollars now with the way the salary cap has risen and with the amount of cap space the Patriots have and other teams are probably going to have at that point the 22 million dollars probably isn't going to be too much of an issue but who knows you know maybe team a team b and team c are all competing for garoppolo services trying to trade with the patriots you know let's say team a has

the best package together but they just can't get the money to work for whatever reason so then you're limiting what your trade market, the competition, the way that the competition can heat up in terms of the return on his value. And then again, it's a little more difficult for a team to say, all right, we're going to take in this quarterback who has a $22 million cap hit and then try to turn that into a long-term deal. Now, because the quarterback money is so crazy, it's not impossible. But I'm'm saying if you've got a chance to take in a guy and extend him the way that you would if if you're the team acquiring garoppolo it's a whole lot easier to do it when his cap hits like a million a million five as opposed to 22 million

so that's why it's more advantageous for the patriots to try to trade him in march about six months from now as opposed to a year and a half from now the other thing to try to trade him in March, about six months from now, as opposed to a year and a half from now. The other thing I want to throw out there, if it happens this offseason, now this is another hypothetical, but Josh McDaniels said last week that he is still interested in being a head coach. Matt Patricia is absolutely on the short list of those up-and-coming coordinators who is going to become a head coach at some point. Let's say both Matt Patricia and Josh McDaniels land head coaching jobs this offseason. Let's say things fall apart in Detroit again. And in Bob Quinn, Bill Belichick's friend, Bob Quinn wants to overhaul the system. And that includes moving on from Matt Stafford.

That's not unrealistic. So then you could potentially have Bob Quinn. You know what? This could kind of line up both ways. Bob Quinn could absolutely hire Josh McDaniels, and then you don't have three teams. But let's say Bob Quinn, Josh McDaniels, and Matt Patricia are all out there competing, calling Bill Belichick, saying, hey, we want Garoppolo to be our guy.

You've got three teams, maybe only two teams, but you've got friends of Belichick who are kind of playing off each other in a best case scenario if you're the Patriots. Now both of those guys might not end up getting head coaching jobs this offseason. Bob Quinn could lead the, Matt Stafford could play well, I guess. It's happened before. The Lions might not be totally awful. And you know, that situation doesn't happen. But, you know, it's something to watch. I think as you watch the NFL season unfold, I think you want to keep an eye on the potential openings for Josh McDaniels and Matt Patricia.

Plus, if those guys end up somewhere. Now, it was a unique situation this past offseason when Josh McDaniels and the Titans were linked. I don't know how much there really was to that, but regardless, there were two vacancies that were filled where coaches, new coaches got Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota, but that is a rare, unique situation. You can't really expect a new coach to go in and inherit a quarterback of the future the way that they did with the Buccaneers and Titans. So, but anyway, I'm kind of rambling there on that point, but I just kind of wanted to throw it out there as something to keep an eye on, again, as the season unfolds.

So I think what we're looking at here is most likely a four-game springboard for Jimmy Garoppolo's career. I asked him about that on Wednesday, and he gave basically the in-house type of answer that you would expect. He's treated it the same way since he's gotten here. He's going to be the starter. It doesn't change anything. And I was like, well, hey, you know, you must look at what Brock Osweiler got this offseason

and kind of smirk a little bit. And same sort of formulaic answer. He didn't bite. Not that I expected him to, but it would have been fun if he did. But this is a key four-game springboard for Garoppolo's career, and I think what the Patriots can get in terms of the return on their investment in Garoppolo and then elevate Jacoby Brissett to the backup role in 2017, and you've got Tom Brady under contract through 2019.

So their quarterback situation is fantastic. Bill Belichick was very praiseworthy of Jacoby Brissett when camp started, how excited he was to work with this group of three quarterbacks. And the Patriots are in a good spot, once again, as they usually are with their roster building as it is in the present and what it could ultimately mean in the future. So that's pretty much my point on that. It's going to be a lot of fun to see what happens with Garoppolo in the next six months with his career and what that means for the Patriots as they try to build assets in the 2017 draft. you can email me at jeff.howe at bostonherald.com. And once again, hit me up with your questions on Twitter. Unless something happens during Thursday's practice, the Trump's this.

Once again, I want Friday's week-ending show here to really be a Twitter type of Q&A. So hit me up with your questions. Some of them can be fun. Some of them can be serious. Some could require a one-word answer. Some could cause me one-word answer. Some could cause me to ramble incoherently for hours at a time.

I don't know. But let's just have some fun with it. I'm already having fun through two of these podcasts, and we're going to keep it going Monday through Friday throughout the season. Locked on, Patriots. And I'm Jeff Howe with the Boston Herald. What you doing? Ran out of space on my phone, so I'm deleting somee with the Boston Herald. Switch to MetroPCS and get two free LG K20 Plus phones with 32 gigs when you switch two lines. MetroPCS. Wireless. Figured out.

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