The Patriots are the reigning Super Bowl Champions. Every player on last year's roster gets a nice, fat ring to flaunt in front of the other 31 teams who failed to win it all. Now that Jimmy Garoppolo, 2nd-string QB who sits behind Tom Brady, has a beefed-up resume, is it time for him to take the next step and become a franchise quarterback?
This past offseason, numerous rumors circulated about teams that desperately needed quarterbacks pondering acquiring Jimmy G via trade. Were the Browns or 49ers going to try to trade their draft capital for a quarterback who's proven that he can ball, albeit in a very small sample size? Part of the reason why teams exerted caution with Jimmy this year is because of the infamous deal that Brock Osweiler signed (which I, by the way, absolutely congratulate him for; props to him for snagging as much money as possible in free agency). The issue is that teams are scared of replicating that scenario with Jimmy G, which unfairly hurts his stock as a player.
However, he has several ways to build his legacy--ways that he can control himself. Jimmy has all of training camp, preseason, and certain regular season games to ball out, all while learning behind one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. As Brady gets even older (he turned 40 recently), his minutes and snaps will surely be lessened gradually. Bill Belichick knows that he can't risk his star quarterback getting injured and having his football career end on the spot. This is where Jimmy G steps up and takes snaps under center. In two of the games in 2016 that Tom Brady was not allowed to play in, Jimmy G posted these stats:
9/11/16 @ Arizona (WIN 23-21): 24-33 attempts, 264 pass yards, 72.7% completion, 1 pass TD, 106.1 passer rating
9/18/16 vs. Miami (WIN 31-24): 18-26 attempts, 232 pass yards, 69.2% completion, 3 pass TD, 135.4 passer rating
And just today, in the Patriots' preseason game against Jacksonville:
8/10/17 vs. Jacksonville (LOSE 24-31): 22-28 attempts, 235 pass yards, 78.6% completion, 2 pass TD, 125.4 passer rating
Clearly, Jimmy G is capable of holding his own under center. He's poised and calm, like his mentor. While not a very mobile quarterback, Jimmy G is excellent at finding his targets efficiently and will not be the reason a team loses a football game.
So why don't more teams gamble on him?
Again, past misfortunes in signing backup quarterbacks with potential that turned out to be busts will steer away many teams. Jimmy's best bets at this point are to either hope that his small sample size of greatness is enough to land him somewhere come free agency OR pray that Tom Brady makes an unexpected retirement (which is not likely to happen anytime within the next 5 years).
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It will be interesting to see what the Patriots do with Jimmy G. He'll be a free agent next summer and will most likely be on his way out of New England.
Due to this, I see him as a prime trade candidate, similar to Sam Bradford last season. If any QB on a contender were to go down, the Patriots would probably be able to get a 1st rounder and a 3rd rounder in return for Garappolo.
He's too good to be a backup on the Patriots yet relatively unproven and older than the QB prospects in next year's draft (which is said to be loaded). Interesting to see how the QBs will shake out.
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