Golden Nuggets: Lynch and Shanahan have the respect

Earlier today, a report came from Adam Schefter—well more like speculation— that the reason the whole Jimmy Garoppolo trade went down was so the Patriots could do Garoppolo right and not send him to Cleveland. This is what everyone had been guessing for awhile, but why? There were some guesses that it was because BIll Belichick wanted to stick it to Cleveland (no, the Cleveland he wants to stick it to is in Baltimore now), it was because the Browns were already locked in picks with that A.J. McCarron trade.

Well the real reason is the Patriots wanted to do Garoppolo a favor, basically, and because they had great respect for Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch.

This is big.

Trent Baalke once had some good trades under his belt (Anquan Boldin, anyone?) but as time wore on, it was obvious that his personality not only grew grating to players in free agency, but it could be assumed no one in the NFL wanted to deal with him. The Denver Broncos/Colin Kaepernick debacle is probably the best example of it. To be fair, the Broncos wanted to eat up some of the salary the 49ers were paying him, but Baalke wasn’t budging on working anything out.

Yet, the Patriots want to do business with Lynch and Shanahan. Folks, this is going to pay dividends for the team. This can all go south when the shoe is on the other foot and the Patriots need a favor, but for now, it’s good to know that the respect Lynch and Shanahan have isn’t just from the fanbase, it’s from the inner NFL. That’s why players like Garoppolo will come here.

I still think the Garoppolo trade was a huge mistake for the Patriots. I think they should have offloaded Tom Brady to a playoff-ready team and gotten Jimmy G into the starting lineup, but their loss is the 49ers’ gain. Knowing that they went to the 49ers to make sure Garoppolo had a good team to play for and because they had respect for the organization means this is ripe for trades later on. I only hope the 49ers can be just as open to doing favors as the Patriots did for them. Yes, while that was doing right by Garoppolo, that was still a HUGE favor to the 49ers.

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