OT Source: Patriots trade Rob Gronkowski to Buccaneers for 4th-round pick

Fascinating. I'm actually curious if the market for Brady would have been any stronger if teams had known Gronkowski would be a package deal with Brady, for the cost of a fourth minus a seventh.

 

What about the WWE?

 

If Gronk is still capable of playing the way he has in the past, and he actually plays that offense is gonna pretty scary, unless I guess Brady finally hit's that old man wall.

 

Agreed. They already had a great wide receiving corps. A near-prime Gronk would make them Chiefs-like in terms of overall talent. Even if Brady is balding before our very eyes, I think this will be a very soft landing spot for him. Especially if they get one of the top four offensive tackle prospects with their first rounder.

 

And here I thought the NFL draft was only six rounds.

 

When a player retires before his contract is up, the team still owns his football rights (otherwise, players could just "retire" to get out of contracts and then immediately un-retire and play for whomever they wanted). The Patriots could trade his rights to the Buccaneers...that's the only way he could un-retire and play for Tampa.

 

i really hope there is a season this year. i haven't looked forward to watching the Bucs play like this in a LONG time.

 

One issue you are going to get with any aging QB is whether the OL can protect him. Having a good TE who has proven chemistry with the QB to serve as a safety valve receiver is smart!

 

What were you asking for? Just wondering what he might bring?

 

Sorry sly, Oprah blessed me awhile back when I was on her show.

 

Nobody can afford my wages.

 

Yeah, apparently the 49ers were the team Brady most wanted to go to, since they were his boyhood favorite. I guess you have to think about it, but I'm glad they stuck with Garoppolo. I don't think Brady is better than he is anymore and Garoppolo has many more years left.

 

Do you think Jimmy G was good enough last year to dignify the contract?

 

Yes, he was on the edge of a top-10 quarterback statistically and his salary is already getting dwarfed by the salaries of quarterbacks signed since him. By next off-season, his salary is going to be a bargain relative to the cap (which will jump a lot).

He's not dominant, but he's generally very good. He just reserved his worst game for the Super Bowl, which is unfortunate. Part of that, though, was poor interior line play. They were missing their starting center and the backup (Ben Garland) was good at run blocking but pretty weak at pass protection. One of their guards, Mike Person, was also quite bad at pass protection. They're going to replace Person (probably with Daniel Brunskill, who actually performed really well all over the line last year when Staley, McGlinchey and Person were injured).

I'd love to have a more consistently dynamic quarterback, but I think Garoppolo actually performed pretty similarly to Matt Ryan in Ryan's first season with Shanahan. This isn't Garoppolo's first season with Shanahan, but it was his first full season--he played 5 games in 2017 after the trade, and played only a few games in 2018 before getting hurt. Matt Ryan took off in season 2 under Shanahan. I'm not going to project a similar jump for Garoppolo (Ryan won MVP that year), but I think it's likely he improves.

 

The 49ers will regret not going after Brady.