here's a pats thread for everyone to talk about patritos shit because nobody else cares

bedard confirming most of it, denying brady pushed for trade (sorry for long c/p but i think it's paywalled):

Here’s what I have learned about how things have gone down in Foxborough, and how tenuous the future is — if it is at all:

*Tom Brady knows what is going on around him — now more than ever — as he has always had a fear he would be traded by Bill Belichick. The team’s decision to not trade Jimmy Garoppolo this past offseason, when his demand would have been highest, agitated Brady.

*Meanwhile, Brady’s rumored contract extension after last year’s Super Bowl has not materialized, meaning Brady’s cap numbers is set to jump from $14 million (8.4 percent of the team’s cap) to $22 million (12.4 percent) the next two seasons. Without an extension, Brady’s contract is now easily traded or terminated.

*The reason Brady was at such a discount through this season is because Brady and Kraft came to an agreement that he would take up less of the cap going forward to secure his place with the team. If Brady didn’t, Kraft couldn’t predict the future. From my MMQB piece in May 2015:
Right now, according to Spotrac, the Patriots are due to rank 16th, 15th and 20th the next three years, respectively, in the percentage of cap spent on quarterbacks thanks to Brady’s team-friendly contract. That is not an accident. After losing the 2012 AFC Championship Game to the Ravens, Kraft told Brady on a shared flight to California that if he wanted to get paid what he’s worth in a year or two, it probably wasn’t going to be tenable for the team. The Patriots did not want to pay 18 percent of their cap to a quarterback (as they were at the time), even one as great as Brady. Kraft told Brady that he was basically going to have to play at half price, which he will do from this year through the end of the contract in ’17 (it was extended in March 2016), to help the team give him the supporting cast to win championships and enhance his legacy. Brady thought about it, and agreed. The extension was announced in late February 2013. Also keep in mind that, also to help the team, Brady has never maximized the guaranteed money in his contract.

*Sometime in September, right around the time Brady fitness guru Alex Guerrero and Brady were launching their TB12 Method book, Belichick sent word to Guerrero that he would have the same access to members of the team not named Brady as other personal fitness personnel, and that meant no more team flights and sideline access. Again, this did not sit well with Brady.

*Put all of those things together — Garoppolo, the contract and Guerrero — and Brady was edgy. He wondered, after all he had done for the Patriots, why was his place on the team for 2018 not totally secure (at least in his mind)? Brady started to get in Kraft’s ear about it. Repeatedly. All the evidence was telling Brady that Belichick intended to trade him after the season and go with Garoppolo. Brady wanted to know where the security and loyalty was? He took less money and that enabled them to win two of the past three Super Bowls, and were favorites to make it three in four years? Why, considering all that, did Brady not have any assurances of being on the Patriots in ’18?

*Brady never said or hinted about wanting Garoppolo traded. Didn’t happen. Brady just wanted some assurances of his future.

*As the trade deadline neared, and Brady playing some of the best ball of his career and looking like an MVP candidate — he obviously wasn’t looking like a 40-year-old QB as Belichick feared — Kraft decided to demonstrate his loyalty to Brady and told Belichick to trade Garoppolo. If Belichick wasn’t going to do the contract extension, or tell Brady of his plan with Garoppolo, then Kraft was going to do what was in his power to make his favorite player more comfortable.

*Belichick wasn’t happy about it — he believed Garoppolo was the QB to lead the Patriots long after he was retired — and he begrudgingly traded Garoppolo. He did not seek out offers or the highest value. He respects Garoppolo, wanted to give him a chance to succeed, so he left a message for Kyle Shanahan, whom Belichick thought a lot of, to call him the next day, Oct. 30 (date of the trade deadline). The deal was done for a second-round pick with little discussion.

*The truth is, Belichick had no plans of trading Brady and sticking with Garoppolo. He just wanted to take all the time he could before making a decision, which was likely going to be to tag Garoppolo and then trade him, if Garoppolo didn’t agree to another attempt at a bridge deal. Belichick had no idea if Brady was going to suffer a major injury down the stretch or in the postseason. Brady could get into a car accident on Feb. 25, for all Belichick knew. Belichick doesn’t try to predict the future. He was going to keep Garoppolo as long as he could, and if Brady was still playing like he was 30, a decision would have to be made. Belichick was not going to trade Brady if he was playing like the MVP and champion of three of the past four Super Bowls. No way.

*Now, if Brady struggled down the stretch, and then looked like Brett Favre in the 2007 NFC Championship Game … all bets were off. Again, as much time as possible to make a decision…

*So Belichick, Brady and Kraft were all unhappy in some respect. Someone broached the subject of a meeting to get all three back on the same page before the first Miami game. It never happened, and it’s not known if the meeting has happened since.

*As far as I have been told, that’s the extent of the situation. All three are irritated to some degree — Belichick about Garoppolo and Kraft’s meddling in football, Brady on Guerrero and his contract, and Kraft about the whole thing (although he’s more like Switzerland in all this) — but no one I’ve spoken with thinks this thing is driving towards a cliff. Belichick is not likely going anywhere, but his solo counsel approach leads to speculation in the building. He will get over it and start finding the next Garoppolo. Brady, who currently has no desire to do another deal to help the team, will keep working like he always does. Kraft will go back to minding his own business.

*No one I’ve spoken with thinks this situation comes close to derailing this season. It’s not Armageddon, and everyone is still a professional at the end of the day.

so Robert you're saying this is just ESPN making up "fake news"

Two weeks before the Nov. 1 trading deadline, Belichick met with Kraft to discuss the quarterback situation. According to staffers, the meeting ran long, lasting half the day and pushing back Belichick's other meetings. The office was buzzing. The meeting ended with a clear mandate to Belichick: trade Garoppolo because he would not be in the team's long-term plans, and then, once again, find the best quarterback in the draft and develop him. Belichick was furious and demoralized, according to friends. But in the end, he did what he asks of his players and coaches: He did his job.

yes, i need more to be convinced of the idea that belichick was "forced" to make a trade that made perfect sense and was v much in line with his previous trade strategy in general and qb development/trade strategy specifically.

so you don't think that he would have preferred to wait until after this year when he could have tagged jimmy, tried to sign him to a contract (longshot admittedly) or at worst trade him under the tag? do you find it a little bit interesting that he didn't solicit offers or call anyone but the niners?

trading under the tag gives them even less leverage because everyone knows they can't keep him on the books, and of course it burns the tag. idk about the detail on how the offer went down, it is interesting and at least plausible. but it still doesn't follow that if that part is entirely accurate then it somehow indicates bill's hand was forced.

yeah i mean if you tagged him you would have so little leverage you might have to let a top young qb prospect go for a second round draft pick or something like that!

"They were disappointed," Reiss said of the fans' reaction to sending Cassel and Vrabel to KC for a second round pick. "They had visions of maybe a first round pick, multiple firsts. They were disappointed it was only a second round pick. They thought it was a fleece job.

that was a decade ago the market has changed considerably imo

@AdamSchefter Reports breaking from Foxboro that #Patriots star Tom Brady was so upset at not being named player of the week by coach Bill Belichick that he reportedly left an "upper decker" in the toilet of Belichick's private bathroom in the team facilities...more to come

lmao brady and his grifter trainer

quit talking greasy or u gonna get snuffed by soft tissue goons #tb12mobb

it seems entirely plausible if not likely to me that brady viewed this season as an inflection point in which the pats had to choose him or jimmy g moving forward and so he went to kraft and said "if it's me then trade him"

this feels like a bad plot from a basic cable show season 8 episode. The grifter trainer as the big bad vs overall series villain.

a complicating factor of the trade is i'm still unclear exactly how teams are supposed to know how good another team's back up QB is... i doubt they're judging just on the 4 games he played when brady was suspended and some preseason games. there must be some teams that have intel on the quality of certain teams back ups based on which circles of gossip they're privy too, so i dunno if there existed an open trade market for jimmy the way it would for a player who people had actually seen play like more than 5 games of pro football before.

but i think by all reports they turned down way more for jimmy at other points. the cassell comparison doesn't really hold for me bcuz i'm sure the pats knew they were getting a steal with that one and were getting ripped off with this one.

also... what a coincidence that brady has been borderline awful in december... it's almost as if he knew he was hanging on by a thread and if BB saw the conclusion to this season he'd choose jimmy...

I don't really care much about messy Pats drama but I will read about Brady's quack trainer all day, I love him

reading between some lines here but i think the quack trainer was very likely the source for brady's various grievances in the piece.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DSye9hhV4AA039X.jpg

well that's settled

its a fallacy

THIS WHOLE SCENE IS FUCKING FALLACIOUS MAN

i know people crave Patriots schadenfreude real bad but c'mon, both Brady and Belichick likely only have two years left (at most), Kraft is like 80. they've all been together for like two decades and they have five Super Bowls. "is this the beginning of the end"....come on folks.

the thing you dont understand is they need this more than we do

brady is going to lose his shit when he sees he was listed third on the official statement

I had never actually seen a picture of Jimmy G. before, holy shit

Brady has noted to staff a few times this year that, no matter how many game-changing throws he makes, Belichick hasn't awarded him Patriot of the Week all year.

lol

TS: TB12 vs. Goop

the bb/tb dynamic is 100% football dad withholds approval and little tom tries even harder for it

this is not quite as juicy as I was hoping for

put on espn nfl show b/c randy moss <3 and they're STILL talking about this story.

i have a sub to bedard's boston sports site as well & pretty much believe his take on it - everybody has a point, they'll figure it out, belichick gets paid $$ to find and draft the next guy up because the timing didn't work out on keeping jimmy g.

i thought one of the important points was, since belichick doesn't tell ANYONE what he's planning to do there's rampant speculation and lots of ppl on edge in the organization.

and i get why brady would be upset since he's obvs hyper aware that bill will trade anyone with no warning and that his contract's cap hit next season without a restructure/renewal is more than the team would want to pay.

the thing about guerrero vs the pats trainers.. ok guerrero is seen as a whack job by a lot of people now but i also wonder.. from following this team closely for the past ten years, wasn't there a huge issue with brady's ACL recovery after effectively following team instructions and it didn't go well? and this NYT article from a couple years ago said brady had some other issue back around 05/06 and the team told him to go have a tendon cut to relieve pain (!). just kind of wonder if the team's trainers (ie most/all nfl trainers) tend to give direction that the way they've always done it, but maybe not in the long term interests of the player.

i believe in my heart that bill was planning on trading brady in the offseason and he considered it the culmination of his career and greatest accomplishment

and the breakup rumors are true because brady sniffed out the plan and outmaneuvered bill which is the greatest insult imaginable

bill simmons had an interesting pod with francesca about this...bill sort of falls somewhere in the middle. his thing is he finds it hard to believe that belichick would ever take that order from kraft, or that kraft would actually issue it

thank you for listening to bill simmons so i don't have to :)

just saw a tv ad for "12 Strong" & every time an action movie comes out around the playoffs i'm like, is this the annual mark wahlberg us vs everybody movie for the pats team outing

hard to believe that belichick would ever take that order from kraft, or that kraft would actually issue it

easy for me to believe that belichick would be made to understand what kraft wanted without literally being told. an order delivered with plausible deniability for all. deniable not only to the outside world, but even to themselves.

idk why its hard to imagine kraft saying brady is retiring a patriot and thats that he does own the team

yeah i believe it's much more likely kraft said "brady is a retiring a patriot" than "trade jimmy" even if the end result is the same.

i support brady retiring a pat and also he shd do it within the next year or two prob

although as long as hes playing good.....

it wld be pretty incredible from a decline of american football perspective if he got caught juicing after all this

If youre good they let you do it

feels like there's no incentive for anyone to really looking into juicing in football but if they did brady would be a good place to start

man hes just using muscle elongation

tbqh considering the strain football puts on the body itd make sense to allow some juicing for recovery purposes

def

supervised juicing

we can call it "sprucing" just to eliminate bad connotations

i have no idea what i'm watching

i have no idea what i'm watching

http://blog.masslive.com/patriots/2018/01/sean_harrington_patriots_engin_1.html

this is ultimately thin on substance but p interesting nonetheless, about the software engineer in NE's personnel dept and automating player and charting data collection