Commentary

Trade could cost Pats the Super Bowl

Oh no, not Tommy.

Alerts were set off on cell phones all across the six states of New England when Tom Brady was placed on the injury report after he collided with a teammate on a hand-off at practice on Wednesday and hurt his right hand. He went for precautionary X-rays. Although Bill Belichick did not have a news conference Thursday to potentially explain the severity of Brady's injury, it was bad enough that he was held out of practice, three days before the AFC Championship Game vs. Jacksonville.

This is why the Patriots' decision to trade Jimmy Garoppolo at the trading deadline halfway through the season made no sense then and it makes no sense now.

If it winds up costing New England the Super Bowl, it will eventually come out who was ultimately responsible for the trade and the Evil Empire could implode as fingers get pointed at the culprit, whether it was Belichick or Robert Kraft or even Brady who felt threatened by Jimmy G and implored Kraft to deal him.

Brady has been listed on the injury report at various times this season with a left shoulder injury and an Achilles injury. He didn't miss a game, the Patriots were 13-3 and he was brilliant in last week's divisional round wipeout of the Titans. He will likely be named MVP and nobody in the history of team sports has ever played at this level at the age of 40.

If Brady has to throw with his left hand, there is no way he's going to miss Sunday's game. It's his seventh consecutive conference championship game and the 12th in his 16 years as the starter, not counting 2008, when he suffered a torn ACL in the first quarter of the first game.

Jacksonville is on a roll and plays with a chip on its shoulder and surely every fan outside of Patriots Nation is rooting for the Jaguars to take down New England. If Brady is impacted by the hand injury and his passes are floating and lacking their usual zip, then the mismatch between Brady and Blake Bortles becomes less severe.

In the worst-case scenario that Brady can't play or reinjures the hand or just is not effective and Belichick has to go to the bullpen, then it will be Brian Hoyer, who put up this ghastly line in the one playoff start of his career, which came two years ago in the Texans' 30-0 home wild-card loss to the Chiefs: 15 of 34 for 136 yards, zero TDs, 4 INTs, 15.9 QB rating.

So, what were the Patriots thinking when they traded Garoppolo to the 49ers on Oct. 31 for the low-low price of just a second round pick in the 2018 draft?

If they had kept Jimmy G and then he just walked away as a free agent in March, the Pats would have received a third-round compensatory pick in the 2019 draft. Even if the pick was a year later and 50-60 picks worse, it was a small price for the quality insurance Garoppolo would have provided for the second half of the season and the playoffs.

Garoppolo was 5-0 as starter for the 49ers and revived the franchise. The Niners pick 11th in the second round, 43rd overall. At the time of the trade, San Francisco had won just one game and the pick could have been as high as 32 or 33.

Belichick turned down trade offers for Garoppolo in the offseason and never shopped him when the decision was made to trade him during the season. He contacted 49ers Coach Kyle Shanahan and said Garoppolo was his for a second-round pick. No other teams were invited to bid. There's a chance if Belichick traded him to Cleveland, he could have secured the Browns' second No. 1 pick, which originally belonged to Houston, and is now the fourth overall pick.

As I said, it made no sense then and it makes no sense now.

The recent ESPN story about turbulence in the Patriots organization claims Kraft mandated that Belichick trade Garoppolo. Kraft refuted that report and said Belichick informed him of the deal and called him to get him to sign off.

If Jimmy G was still in the house, the Patriots could still win the Super Bowl. That insurance was worth way more than the Patriots could ever get back in a trade.

Now Patriots Nation will have trouble eating its clam chowder until it knows Tommy is OK. If he's not and it costs the Patriots getting to the Super Bowl, then Belichick is going to have some explaining to do.

Sports on 01/20/2018

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