A couple of ESPN’s prominent NFL media members clearly aren’t seeing eye to eye.
Adam Schefter recently said during a WEEI radio appearance that he thought the starting point for a potential trade involving New England Patriots backup quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo would be a first-round draft pick and a fourth-round pick. Trent Dilfer, a former NFL quarterback, didn’t agree and suggested the Patriots were using Schefter to set an asking price for Garoppolo.
This didn’t sit well with Schefter.
“I didn’t report that they were getting (a first-round pick) and (a fourth-round pick). I gave a statement on my football sentiment and my football instincts and my football knowledge,” Schefter said Tuesday on WEEI’s “Kirk and Callahan,” per WEEI.com. “Again, that’s what I believe will ultimately be the starting price. That doesn’t meant it will be. I could be wrong. I can tell you this, I am going to be closer than Trent Dilfer is on that and I might be low on the one and a four.”
Schefter made it clear Tuesday that no one in the Patriots organization ever has told him what the team would want or would expect to get in a trade for Garoppolo. He still believes in the asking price he speculated, though. Dilfer, conversely, speculated New England might get a second- and a third-round pick for the 25-year-old quarterback.
The Minnesota Vikings traded a first-round pick in 2017 and a fourth-round pick in 2018 to the Philadelphia Eagles in September for quarterback Sam Bradford, and there are plenty of teams across the NFL in need of a potential franchise QB. Thus, the market for Garoppolo could be robust, Schefter argued, if the Patriots ultimately decide to make Tom Brady’s backup available via trade.
“I know there will be more than one team interested. I firmly believe it will be minimum a first-round draft pick, and when I used the one and a four, I used that as a basic comparison to Sam Bradford asking, ‘Would you rather have Sam Bradford or Jimmy Garoppolo,’ ” Schefter said, per WEEI.com. “Sam Bradford went for a one and a four and to me that is where it starts. That’s the genesis of something that was just a statement that turned into a little bit of a brush fire.
“And again, facts will be used to correct Trent there. Nobody in New England has ever stated any price to me on Jimmy Garoppolo and nobody has ever said to me, ‘Can you please put that out there so we can drum up the interest.’ It’s amazing that somebody that I work with and respect as much as I do would say something like that.”
Garoppolo, a second-round pick (62nd overall) in 2014, has completed 43 of 63 passes this season for 502 yards and four touchdowns with no interceptions over parts of six games (two starts).
Click for Schefter’s full interview >>
Thumbnail photo via Bob DeChiara/USA TODAY Sports Images
