The return for Jimmy Garoppolo and Jacoby Brissett is a steaming pile of cow dung - A Think Piece
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I hate this take. If Tom goes down there is 0.000000000000000000% chance we can win the bowl, regardless of who our backup is/was. And that includes Patron Saint Garoppolo of San Francisco. I would rather go 0-16 to get better draft picks for a healthy Tom when he returns. Going 11-5 and missing the yoffs does absolutely nothing for the blood flow towards my nether regions. But I digress. This is a long winded intro of saying even with my lack of care for our backup QB position, I still think its crazy that Brian Hoyer is on our sideline while the J&J Express are starting elsewhere.
Jacoby Brissett was sent to the Colts at the beginning of the season. He was our third string QB. We hadn't carried three QBs for years until we drafted Jacoby two years ago. The reason seemed obvious at the time. Tom was too good. Jimmy had to go via trade or free agency. Keep Brissett under a rookie deal for four years to bridge the gap. But then BANG, out the door goes Jacoby, and in comes Flip Dorsett who was the 29th overall pick in 2015 from? The U.
Wow, ok. Jacoby out. We were slim at WR after Jules went down. Flip has first round speed. I guess the coaching staff felt Jacoby was never going to be the guy. I like the proactive move. We've got Jimmy as our backup this year. Then at the trade deadline, BANG, Jimmy traded to SF. What comes back? The 49ers second round pick in 2018. At the time, the Niners were tied for the worst record in the league, or 32nd best. They currently sit with the 27th best record in the league.
We signed Hoyer off the trash heap to be a place holder until we draft a rookie this year. I honestly don't think this rookie will ever see the field either, as Tom has AT LEAST 3 years left and this kid will have a contract length of 4 years, but that's neither here nor there. The trades beg the question, how'd we do??
On paper, it kind of looks like we handed two franchise quarterbacks out to our opponents. Jacoby has an interesting situation. He's been starting all year, basically, but they do have Andrew Luck still. (Don't even get me started on Scott Tolzien who STINKS) In 2016 Luck signed an NFL record contract for 6 years at 140 mil. He basically hasn't played since. I have no clue what the deal is with this idiot. People crowned him the next Brady the day he dipped his big toe in NFL waters. All he's ever done since is get buried by Tom in the playoffs a couple times, throw a million picks, and then detach his right arm from his body. There are rumblings that the Colts might be willing to move on from him, which seems nuts considering their investment and his talent. I don't think he's an all timer but he's damn good when healthy. And I'm not totally sure who is going to be willing to take on that contract in a trade without seeing if Luck can throw the ball further than my 8 year old cousin Lilly. But IF the Colts do move on from Luck, then I think it's safe to say that Jacoby is their guy in the immediate future.
JB has a passer rating of 81.7. The Colts are bad. They are 3-11. I don't think it's his fault, because as I said, the Colts are bad. I think they've even lost a few close ones that they had no business being in mostly due to Brissett playing well. But of qualified passers with at least 100 attempts (of which there are 40) he comes in at #27. That's not great. The only actual starters with worse ratings than JB are Kizer (whose 40th LOL), Tits Trubisky, Flacco, Mariota, and Smokin Jay Cutler. Eli Manning has a better rating than Brissett for crying out loud.
Flip Dorsett has played 13 games for the Patiots and has 8 catches for 144 yards and 0 tuddies. That is putrid. He's a first round pick from the greatest college football program of ALL TIME. If I'm giving you a franchise QB I'd like more back. Especially if you extrapolate this roster. Next year you still have Cooks under control, he's a lock. Jules is back and under contract, he's a lock. Money Mitch will hopefully have healed from his leg amputation and his body will have accepted the prosthetic. He's on a rookie deal and a lock. And Hoags is under contract and a lock. There's 4 WR right there, plus the obligatory Matthew Slater spot. What do you do with Kenny Britt? What do you do with DOLA? What do you do with Flip? Flip is under contract next year, but from the outside looking in it doesn't feel like he's got a shot to make this roster. Giving up a quarterback in a quarterback driven league for a WR rental who caught 8 balls does not feel like a great return.
HOWEVA (Stephen A voice) do we deserve a good return?? I think Jacoby is bad. The fact that we cut bait on him while (probably) knowing we were gonna trade Jimmy this year too means the coaches think he is bad. And his numbers say he is bad. Isn't it ok to trade a bad backup qb for a flier on a first round wr, even if it didnt pan out? When you put it that way, yes it is. My issue is, people didn't know Jacoby was bad yet. He was a promising prospect and should have given us much more value.
Now we get to Jimmy. I've yelled til I'm blue in the face about how mishandled that situation was. The kid needed to be off the team two year ago if you wanted a first, or multiple firsts for him. The problem, like it or not, is contract control. That's all teams care about. So trading him this year with no control wasn't as attractive as offering him up with 2 years left on a rookie deal. For this reason we only got a second round pick. One of them. PUKE. To make matters worse, it felt like it would be the 33rd pick, but its probably more like 38, 39, 40. Not a huge difference but kind of a huge difference. It's stupid to compare drafts so I'm not going to show you who was taken at those spots the last few years, but just know that we would much rather have 33 for trade purposes for teams that didn't get their guy in the first round but he falls to the second.
And how's Jimmy doing since the trade? They didn't start him right away, but after their bye week he's played the next 3 games. The Niners are undefeated. Jimmy's passer rating is 98, which sits him at 10 of qualified passers. Tom is 2, behind Alex Smith (pfffft) so we aren't complaining. But 10 is way harder to swallow than 27. You know who he is ahead of? Aaron Rodgers, Russ Wilson, Flip Rivers, Big Ben, and Dak. As I said, I dont want to get into this massive discussion again. A second rounder was all we could get WHEN we traded him. I strongly disagree with the timing. But what's done is done. And in this case we can be mad because it sure as shit seems like we gave the Niners a franchise quarterback. I'm already looking forward to the Pats/Niners bowl in 2020. And the fact that we are going to trade out of this pick in April anyway makes it even worse.
Thinking about what the Rams gave up for Goff: 1st rounder in 2016. TWO 2nd rounders in 2016, 3rd rounder in 2016, 1st rounder in 2017, 3rd rounder in 2017 makes steam come out of my ears. It's all about control, it's all about control, it's all about control, but holy shit. Jimmy had good stuff on tape. I need multiple picks even if one of them wasn't a first. It just sucks knowing that if we had pulled the trigger a few years early we are pulling in about 60% of that haul the Titans received for the Goff pick. When Jimmy puts rocket boots on the San Francisco rebuild, it's going to put a hell of a lot of pressure on Bill to make something happen with that pick.
At the end of the day, there is one for sure and possibly two NFL teams that have their QB for the next 5+ years thanks to trades from us. We got a middle of the pack 2nd rounder for the lock, and we got a receiver who was cut after one year for the question mark. What's crazy is I'm not even sure Bill would say he did anything wrong here. That's why he's him and I'm me. But since you're asking me (you weren't) I just don't see it.
