Touched on many of these subjects in our podcast that will drop later, but for those of you not podcast-inclined, here's a roundup of our many nuggets we've picked up over the past week talking to a variety of NFL sources.
Topics/players discussed:
Marcus Mariota and his contract
Ryan Fitzpatrick
Jimmy Garoppolo and the Teddy Bridgewater interest
Beefing up the defensive line
Gardner Minshew
Patriots can't quit Cam Newton
QB draft class is deeper than you think.
Free agency expectations with receivers and tight ends
• Marcus Mariota and his camp are refusing to tear up the final year of his deal, that calls for him to be a $10 million backup, or a $21 million starter.
Number one, I'm not exactly sure how much of a fit he is for the Patriots. Certainly, he has his good points and I wouldn't totally rule out him coming here. Let's just say from people that I've talked to around the league that his personality, his leadership, the way he leads teams — he doesn't really, sort of sits in the back — I don't think is very appealing to the Patriots. I don't think he would be very high up on their list.
His contract is an issue. The easy thing to say would be ... well look, you could trade for the guy and then rip up his contract and blah blah blah. Yes, that is possible in theory, but what needs to happen is the player needs to play ball on that and from what I'm hearing, at least from Mariota's camp is that they are not willing to play ball in the contract and what I mean is the way his contract is written right now. He has one more year left on his deal that pays him at $10 million if he's a backup for this season. It pays him $21 million for a starter for this year. You might say, Look, that's the going rate that's not a that's not a bad deal for a quarterback. But considering you don't know what he's going to be off of ... he lost his job in Tennessee, he's had injury problems, he barely appeared for the Raiders last year — he did look good when he got out there — but are you willing to say, "All right, yeah, we're just going to give you $21 million"? I don't think there's many teams are willing to do that. Certainly, the Patriots are not one of those teams.
The other component about this contract deal is what do you think it's saying to a team say like the Patriots where you have an opportunity as Marcus Mariota to go someplace and basically be given a starting job for a team that was 7-9 with not much talent last year, with the coaching prowess that they have on this team, with some of the promise that they are going to get better with a lot of salary cap space and all that stuff? What do you think it says to the Patriots that Marcus Mariota isn't willing to say, "You know what, I just want a job, I just want an opportunity to start again. I like what the Patriots have done, I can help them be that again, you know, rip up my contract pay me whatever you want. I just want that starting opportunity." That's what most teams would want to hear, that's what the Patriots would want to hear, and that they're not hearing that, I think is another red flag when it comes to Marcus Mariota.
I also would not expect the Patriots to be players for Ryan Fitzpatrick, at least not anytime soon. I would not put many eggs in that basket, but you can never rule it out.
• Jimmy Garoppolo is still Plan A at QB, and I'd keep an eye on the Teddy Bridgewater stuff.
Jimmy Garoppolo is still far away their plan, if they had to draw it up. Of course, that's all dependent on the Niners doing something. Don't believe anything that John Lynch says, he has no power there. It's Kyle Shanahan show from top to bottom, at that place in
Shanahan doesn't show his cards. He might even leave Lynch out there twisting in the wind due to his media ties, I would not put any faith into what Lynch says, I do think that the Niners believe that they're not going to do anything until they do better, but this Teddy Bridgewater stuff bears watching or at least I know other teams are watching it and they're like, "This is kind of interesting because, look, if they trade for Teddy Bridgewater, his base salary for the season is $17 million. That's not backup money. That's starter money and he makes $20 million the year after that,' and believe me when I tell you this, Kyle Shanahan is the type of guy who thinks that his offensive scheme can win with just about any type of quarterback. That's what he believes whether that's true or not, I don't know, but that's what he believes it. So if they are looking at Teddy Bridgewater, because everybody knows the Panthers by now are looking to seriously upgrade at the quarterback position, I think that's very interesting. If you're a Patriots fan, you have to be rooting for the Niners to do something. I can't really see them going all in on like a Deshaun Watson.
I bet you Shanahan looks at Bridgewater and says, "You know, that's a guy that I can win with maybe he throws a little bit better of a deep ball than Garoppolo. For my scheme, maybe he makes some better decisions. I think Jimmy's way better than Teddy Bridgewater, but in that scheme, maybe Shanahan thinks Teddy is a better fit. But make no mistake, Garoppolo is Plan A for the Patriots and Patriots fans should be rooting for the Niners to do something at quarterback and if you think Teddy Bridgewater is going there to be a $17 million backup insurance policy for Jimmy Garoppolo, I have a hard time seeing that.
There's two other parts to this. If you're the Panthers, and trust me when I tell you before even the end of last season they were like, 'Yeah we're done with Teddy, like love you Teddy but we need to do better quarterback.' If you're them, you're probably willing to basically take anything to get his $37 million off the books for the next two years and I think that's part of the equation for them and I think part of the equation for the Niners is maybe some of this is maybe they're looking to get more draft ammunition to move up for their true next QB in the draft. Bridgewater will be cheap due to his contract. Garoppolo would bring you, say, a second-round pick from the Patriots. That helps you move up for your QB du jour in the draft, and Bridgewater is the bridge QB.
Basically got confirmation that this could be one of their paths defensively.
Adrian Phillips was a good box safety last year. Kyle Duggar is a starting-caliber box safety, right now. Then you have Patrick Chung who's another box safety. Okay, so what are you gonna do with three box safeties and Devin McCourty? Dont'a Hightower at MLB, and then two of safeties alongside him.
Number one, it makes you a lot faster on defense. But you'd have to really invest in the defensive line to make it work.
• I hate to say this, but I now think the Patriots are talking themselves into bringing back Cam Newton — or at least that Bill Belichick will — but not as the starter. As part of a room. They really think his surrounding cast was a big problem.
Yeah, this one's tough. The more I talked to people around the team it, hearing these people talk about Cam Newton and that they just don't dismiss the talk and in fact go out of their way to explain it, it's just very odd. I think they have some idea that Bill loves cam which we've talked about going back into the middle of the beginning of the season. The way they talk, the way they don't dismiss him, it's almost like they think this is almost fait accompli where Bill is gonna bring him back, and they've sort of talked themselves into it and now, now they're justifying it.
The way things get explained away to me is well if, you know, Bill realizes we didn't give him anything last year and if we had this x y and z, then Cam would have been better. We could coach cam to do X, Y and Z. And the more I listened to this stuff and I'm like, 'Oh my god, this is gonna happen. Cam is going to be back here.'
I think people are gonna freak out, but nobody's talking about him bringing him back as a starter. I think you're looking at a scenario where it's say a Gardner Minshew — which I think they are open to but it's my favored QB, and it could be any veteran type (Andy Dalton, Ryan Fitzpatrick) – Cam Newton, and a draft pack. And it doesn't necessarily have to be one of the top five that you hear about. I think the Patriots think there's a lot of depth in this quarterback class (Jamie Newman, Kellen Mond, etc).. And I think they're excited about some of these "secondary" guys in this draft. So if you have Minshew, Newton and a draft pick as the "worst-case" scenario for this team, I think they think they'll be okay with that group.
I don't understand the point of Newton, if go get Minshew because he's the best available, then you pair him with a draft pick, I think that's a plan. I don't understand the need for Cam I think it's a charity case, it's, 'You did right by us, you're talking nice about us, so we're gonna bring you back in the fold.' That's the way I feel about it.
My initial advice to the Patriot be like, 'Look, if you love Cam and Bill loves Cam, I understand that, but my advice to you is, don't be in any rush and I don't think they need to be. Go through free agency. See what you can do, make whatever trade you can. Even if they trade for a Minshew and say the Niners make a big move up in the draft, you could still go get Jimmy and have him with Minshew. But my advice to the Patriots is don't do anything with Cam until after the draft. I just wonder if they think they need to do something because of free agency and all that, that we need to get Cam so he's texting guys. My advice is like don't believe in that. Fine, you can have Cam as your little pet project but don't try to sell it to this fan base before the draft. Do it after the draft with someone else here. I think you can sell that.
• Patriots are expected to be in on the big-ticket WRs and TEs — even at the very top ... but ... who's not going to get tagged?
I'm not saying that they are going to get one of these top guys, I'm just telling you that the belief around the team is that they're going to be hot and heavy for the top receivers and tight ends in this free-agent class because they're basically going to use free agency to really get better on offense quickly, and we'll see from there.
Look for younger guys who can do multiple things. I would not expect the Patriots to be in on a Corey Davis, Will Fuller or A.J. Green, but they would be interested in Chris Godwin, Allen Robinson (tag and trade?), Kenny Golladay, Hunter Henry, Jonnu Smith and Nelson Agholor.