It Turns Out Reports the Patriots Offered a 2nd for Jimmy G and the Niners Wanted More are Total Bullshit
Two storms hit New England a couple of days ago, a major one and a very minor one. The first has knocked out power and uprooted trees and is going to cost me about eight hours with a rake, a wheelbarrow and a leaf blower this weekend. The second was fortunately restricted to the internet and will cost me nothing but the time it takes me to clean it up here. Though if I'm being honest, I'd rather be hauling fallen branches into the woods than having to correct the record from yet another published pack of lies about the Patriots.
In short, the new Seth Wickersham book - the one that I think accurately reported that Bill Belichick is prone to giving his coaching assistants wads of cash for a job well done - made a bold claim that prior to this year's draft, the Pats offered the 49ers their 2nd round pick for Jimmy Garoppolo, but San Francisco shot them down because they were demanding at least a No. 1. And a couple of days ago, this blew with a gale force around the internet:
At least until it was exposed for the total bullshit it is.
Pro Football Talk - San Francisco coach Kyle Shanahan says there’s no truth to a recent report that the Patriots reached out about acquiring quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo before the draft.
Asked today about the claim in Seth Wickersham’s book It’s Better to Be Feared that the Patriots contacted the 49ers before the draft and suggested trading a second-round draft pick for Garoppolo, only to have the 49ers say they wanted a first-round pick, Shanahan said there is absolutely no truth to it.
“No. None. I’d also like to not keep answering questions about a book. I promise, if that was the case, I would have talked to their head coach,” Shanahan said.
Listen, I can sympathize. I know how it feels to have your name on the cover of a book you authored that has factual inaccuracies in it. In my first book (order now for the holidays! Cha-Ching!!!), I overstated the family connection between the Pats first head coach Lou Saban and Nick Saban. While a minor error, it killed me I didn't do more careful research and couldn't wait to get the correction into the second edition (and the third, Cha-Ching! again). So I can't imagine what it's like to have run to print with a fabricated story with your name and reputation attached to it. It must be a devastating feeling.
And for his part, Wickersham took time from his busy schedule of texting with Belichick's team chaplain-turned-Judas Jack Easterby to find more unsubstantiated dirt on his former employer to deny he got it wrong. Or something:
Here's the exact passage. You decide:
And his "sources":
To review: The Pats may or may not, in the millions phone usage minutes of terabytes of communication that get exchanged between NFL personnel departments in the lead up to the draft, asked what it would take the Niners to part with Jimmy G. A player they no doubt have high regard for, but could not afford. The football equivalent of driving down the street, seeing a nice house on the market and looking up what it's listed for. It doesn't mean you're calling the realtor and making an offer. Or that you can even afford to move right now. Just one of those things you do if you have any thing more than a passing interest in the market and what you're own place is worth. And somehow that get's construed as Belichick calling up John Lynch and asking for a buy back on the 2017 Garoppolo deal. You're it. Quitsies. No anti-quitsies. Triple stamp. Touch it blue, make it true.
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Believe me, I'm not trying to overstate the intent or the effect of Wickersham getting this wrong. No one of what appears in his book changes the fact that Belichick kept all his picks, let the draft unfold, and patiently stared down the other GMs as the best rookie quarterback of 2021 fell to him at No. 15. And now has all his future picks available to build around him.
What IS relevant though, is the reaction to this throwaway line in a book. The fact that it was seized upon by the usual suspects who swallow whole anything that reflects negatively on this one franchise and embraces it as settled science. As proven fact. Gospel truth. A few words that paint a picture of a desperate Belichick trying to get a do-over for a trade he regrets and being turned down cold becomes the narrative and goes around the world. Because it scratches everybody's confirmation bias itch. When the whole thing could've been debunked with one phone call.
I hope the next time this author or anyone else gets something about the Patriots completely wrong, it at least has a little more sex appeal than "informal calls" being turned into "trade offers" and the like. If I'm going to spend my time on this crap when I've got chores to do, I'd rather it be about cheating and spying and billboards built outside of Gillette so replays can be seen from the home sideline. This weak sauce is barely worth my time. But at least I've done my duty to set the record straight.