UPDATED: Patriots depth chart and needs list.
Sorry. I'm not going to do it.
I'm not going to leap over mental hurdles and follow the different dissecting and intersecting lines of the Patriots' draft to infinity and beyond to figure out what the Patriots' ultimate haul was in the Jimmy Garoppolo trade.
I already know what it was: the 43rd overall pick. And any amount of trade-backs (two) and trade-ups (one) from Friday night aren't going to obscure the fact that the Patriots got a poor return on their investment in Garoppolo.
Actually, piss poor.
I'm not going to rehash all the chicanery that went on behind the scenes before the trade deadline that suddenly moved Garoppolo from the "They're not trading him for four first-round picks" camp to "How about Jimmy for two, cool? Done." And I'm not going to debate whether or not Bill Belichick's hand was forced (it was) into dealing his prized successor to Tom Brady before he wanted to.
Put all that aside. And just do some simple math.
The Patriots picked Garoppolo with the 62nd overall pick in the 2014 draft. They then invested three-plus years (four offseasons, when the real work goes on) developing him to be ready to take the reigns from Brady, before his TB12 awakening. That's almost four years of intense tutelage under Josh McDaniels. That's almost four seasons of "I met with him weekly" meetings with Belichick (those were actually just the QB group meetings, but Belichick didn't make that distinction ... Hmm, wonder why?). That's a long time to be in the Patriots' player programs that include the best medical, nutritional and strength care money can buy (just don't ask the pliability crew about that).
"All of us have a certain group of guys in our room that we spend more time with than others – and in Jimmy’s case, the better part of four years," McDaniels said after Garoppolo was shipped to San Francisco.
And at the end of all that, the Patriots recouped a whole 19 spots of "prized" second-round territory when they dealt Garoppolo to the 49ers -- who didn't take long to give him a new contract with $48.7 million fully guaranteed.
From a New England perspective, that makes absolutely no sense, especially when you consider the career turn of Ryan Mallett. Entering the 2014 offseason (a year prior to him being an unrestricted free agent), I asked a well-connected source if the team would be willing to trade Mallett, who was a third-round pick (74th overall), for a second-round pick.
"No way," he said. "We've developed him for three years; we need to recoup more than that."
What happened? The Patriots held Mallett, drafted Garoppolo, and everyone knew New England would subsequently get rid of Mallett. A few months later, he was ultimately traded to the Texans for a conditional sixth-round pick.
The Patriots wouldn't deal Mallett for some 20-odd draft slots, but they did do it with Garoppolo, who they drafted higher (meaning they thought more of him coming out of college) and spent an additional year developing (never mind the 2-0 record as a starter with great stats in actual experience)?
This isn't about what Garoppolo did last season in San Francisco. And this has nothing to do with the fact that, at the end of the day with all of Friday's mechanisms tossed in, the Patriots traded Garoppolo and a second-round pick for cornerback Duke Dawson, a fourth-round pick, and a second-rounder next year (watch that one be spun as well).
This is about the Patriots not maximizing the most valuable of assets (a young quarterback) twice: by not trading him before last year's draft, and not shopping the pick to other quarterback-starved teams around the league before the deadline.
The Patriots should have received more than the 43rd pick for Garoppolo at the time of the trade, and that won't change -- even if Dawson and the two other draft picks become Hall of Fame players.
You can't preach the value they ended up getting with the 43rd pick while ignoring the value they left on the table when they traded Garoppolo to the 49ers. You can't have it both ways. It's either value matters all the time, or none of the time.
So while I'm sure others will bend over backward in the coming years to show you how much value the Patriots ultimately received in exchange for Garoppolo, don't forget they left way more on the table priot to and when they traded him.
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So the first three rounds of the draft have come and gone and the Patriots added exactly zero players to a front seven that was absolutely ravaged in the Super Bowl (and at other points) last season.
Now, I already talked about that I liked the Patriots' offseason, pending what they did at left tackle. And they've even done well to give Dante Scarnecchia puzzle pieces to find the right fit by re-signing LaAdrian Waddle, drafting Isaiah Wynn and trading for Trent Brown.
But they couldn't find one player in the first three rounds that could be impactful on defense or, at the least, upgrade a linebacking depth chart that is now Dont'a Hightower and a bunch of misfits (Kyle Van Noy, Elandon Roberts, Marquis Flowers, Nicholas Grigsby)?
Then you have to remember that entering this draft, everyone rightfully raved about how the Patriots were the power players in this draft as they held five picks in the top 95 — 23, 31, 43, 63 and 95.
Many Patriots fans (and, honestly, I was as well) were rubbing their hands together waiting to see how Belichick would cure the short list of ills his defending AFC champions had. Would he trade up for one or two (like 2012) impactful defensive players? Would he sit tight and just add incredible depth four picks in the first two rounds? Would he grab the new heir apparent?
Nope.
All that abundance of draft capital, and the return was a good offensive lineman who may or may not be able to play left tackle, a first-round running back with injury concerns, an undersized but competitive cornerback, and a mammoth tackle with weight, injury and contract issues.
No, that's not what I had in mind, and I'm guessing many Patriots fans didn't as well.
But, Belichick knows what he's doing and he gets the chance to prove his brilliance once again.
However, we'll be keeping an eye on the players the Patriots passed on — like LB Darius Leonard (Colts), WR Calvin Ridley (Faclons)DE Breeland Speaks (Chiefs), OLB Uchenna Nwosu (Chargers), TE Dallas Goedert (Eagles), DE Kemoko Turay (Colts), OLB Lorenzo Carter (Giants), S Justin Reid (Texans), DE Rasheem Green (Seahawks) and others — to see if Belichick chose wisely.