Patriots turn Jimmy Garoppolo trade return upside down in NFL Draft

Shanna Lockwood/USA TODAY Sports

When the Patriots traded Jimmy Garoppolo to the 49ers in October for a second-round pick, everyone felt that Bill Belichick didn't get nearly enough back, especially considering reports that Cleveland was willing to give the Pats multiple first-round picks for him just before the 2017 draft.

Fast forward to draft weekend 2018. Belichick traded the pick he got from San Francisco for another pick, then traded that for another pick, then traded that pick for something else, then....well, you get the idea.

Trying to track what the return is now is harder than trying to figure out what happened at the end of The Sopranos.

Luckily, Phil Perry of NBC Sports Boston is Patriots' fans knight in shining armor and was able to break it down.

OK. Take a deep breath.

Let's figure out the tally on the Garoppolo trade as of late Friday night.

NINERS RECEIVE: JIMMY GAROPPOLO

PATRIOTS RECEIVE: 2019 SECOND-ROUND PICK, 2018 FOURTH-ROUND PICK (NO. 105) . . . plus a little extra juice to help them move up to get Duke Dawson.

How long will this shell game continue? It could go until the end of the second round next year. Maybe longer. They could always trade that 2019 second for another to-be-determined haul.

The bottom line is there won't be one face to slap on the cork board alongside Garoppolo's when talking about that 2017 out-of-nowhere deal. But it looks like there will be a couple. We'll see. And Duke Dawson just became part of a very convoluted answer to a very simple trivia question: What did the Patriots get in return for Jimmy Garoppolo?

UPDATE: The haul for Garoppolo got a little more cloudy on Saturday...

* No. 105 was traded for No. 114 and No. 178
* No. 114 was traded for a 2019 third-rounder
* No. 178 became LB Christian Sam

The final Garoppolo trade tally (for now): 2019 second-rounder, 2019 third-rounder, linebacker Christian Sam and . . . some juice to help the Patriots trade up to land corner Duke Dawson.

This is obviously subject to change.

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