Pats trade Gilmore to Carolina

Eddie Jurak

canderson-lite
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 12, 2002
44,478
Melrose, MA
The Athletic said yesterday that no one met their price. So unless a team is just willing to say "High bid gets him!" what should they do? They set a value and no one met it. Does that mean they should have just accepted anything else?

They clearly felt if no one met their price, they were comfortable bringing him back and seeing if they could work something out--then the quad injury.
My comment you replied to was about Garoppolo, but could be extended to Gilmore, too. If no one would meet their price back then, maybe their price was too high.
 

Big McCorkle

Member
SoSH Member
May 9, 2021
231
I don't think there's a trend away from this. They traded Cooks for a first before 2018 rather than pay him, for instance, and they wound up cutting Lawyer Milloy and getting nothing for him in 2003. There are a lot of considerations here: the likelihood or re-signing, desperation / need from other teams, alternatives / needs on the current team, etc. Sometimes they trade guys a year early, sometimes at the deadline, sometimes they let them play out the contract and they leave.
And there was the Chandler Jones trade, which they turned into Thuney and Malcolm Mitchell. Jamie Collins, too. I don't know off the top of my head what happened with that third round pick.

The Athletic said yesterday that no one met their price. So unless a team is just willing to say "High bid gets him!" what should they do? They set a value and no one met it. Does that mean they should have just accepted anything else?

They clearly felt if no one met their price, they were comfortable bringing him back and seeing if they could work something out--then the quad injury.
I mean, yes, they should probably have accepted that they were going to be price-takers in that scenario, with at least one of Thuney and Gilmore if not both of them. But to some degree, this is if we assume that the team is operating with perfect information, which it just isn't. It wasn't some egregious act of stupidity on their part. They don't know that Brady doesn't end up getting injured so Garoppolo was ultimately never useful as a backup that year, they don't know that Gilmore does end up getting injured... I honestly can't think of an excuse for not trading Thuney though, he was always going to be more valuable at the trade deadline (and by that point they knew they had a motherfucker in Onwenu to replace him) than in the offseason.
 

lexrageorge

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 31, 2007
18,100
The continued complaining about the Garoppolo trade is crossed over to the absurd. There was a real option value to having JG on the team to start the year, so the team was right to set a high asking price. But somehow that is translated into "they didn't try to trade him".

When they did trade him, they also got a backup QB who knew the system, which also had some option value. Turns out they didn't need Hoyer, but no way to know that at the time the trade was made. Also, the 49'ers were 1-9 when the trade was made, so that 2nd was looking to be essentially a low first at the time. But someone in the media had a hot take that they could have gotten a high first for JG so the "Pats blew it" narrative is given far more life than it deserved.

Seems like Thuney was a miss. But stuff like that happens to every other team as well.
 

Cellar-Door

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 1, 2006
34,464
The continued complaining about the Garoppolo trade is crossed over to the absurd. There was a real option value to having JG on the team to start the year, so the team was right to set a high asking price. But somehow that is translated into "they didn't try to trade him".

When they did trade him, they also got a backup QB who knew the system, which also had some option value. Turns out they didn't need Hoyer, but no way to know that at the time the trade was made. Also, the 49'ers were 1-9 when the trade was made, so that 2nd was looking to be essentially a low first at the time. But someone in the media had a hot take that they could have gotten a high first for JG so the "Pats blew it" narrative is given far more life than it deserved.

Seems like Thuney was a miss. But stuff like that happens to every other team as well.
They were actually 0-8 when the trade was made, but then sat Jimmy the next 2 weeks into the bye and the first game after the bye to get him familiar with the system, CJ Beathard started.

Overall though, I agree. Jimmy G trade was good value. There is no real indication they had and turned down better offers, they got a backup for part of the year, and then traded him to a team that had stacked up 8 losses, making the pick more valuable.
 

54thMA

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 15, 2012
10,154
Westwood MA
My objection was to the notion that the Pats were a distant fourth on the sports landscape in Boston, I don't think that is true at all. I agree things can and do change quickly as the teams ebb and flow. I think it'll take more than a couple of down years for the Pats season ticket list to fade away, but if they suck for a long period of time of course it will.
PM sent.
 

tims4wins

PN23's replacement
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
37,069
Hingham, MA
Yeah the only other option on the Gronk trade was to trade him somewhere else, where he refuses to play, and both the other team and Gronk are pissed at the Pats. That's horrible long term business.

I think almost all of these moves do have some element of doing right by the player, which seems important to me from a talent attraction / retention perspective.
 

j44thor

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 1, 2006
10,961
Yet if Harris hangs onto the ball and Folk's kick goes through we are sitting here at 3-1. So, despite what you and others may think they are not that far away.
They would have been in position to be 3-1 but neither of those games were close to over even if NE takes the lead. MIA would have had plenty of time to come back and TB has Tom Brady with 45 seconds and 2 TO. I'd say 2-2 even if both those things happen is more likely outcome. They are a competitive but flawed team though if the OL continues to be decimated anything they do at CB is a moot point.
 

jsinger121

@jsinger121
SoSH Member
Jul 25, 2005
17,677
Yet if Harris hangs onto the ball and Folk's kick goes through we are sitting here at 3-1. So, despite what you and others may think they are not that far away.
But they didn’t and that’s a fact. And if Folk makes the kick Brady still has a minute to go with 2 timeouts only need a FG to win. There is no sure thing the Patriots win that game if that’s the case. Bill Parcells said years ago. You are what your record says you are. They are a 1-3 football team with massive issues on both lines and at linebacker.
 

DJnVa

Dorito Dawg
SoSH Member
Dec 16, 2010
53,850
I mean, yes, they should probably have accepted that they were going to be price-takers in that scenario,
But that's assuming the only option they had was trading him. The other option, which they seemed to have accepted, is if the price point is not met then we keep him and try to sign him. Then subsequent events happened and it turned out, in hindsight, that they should have taken a 3rd or whatever.
 

Eddie Jurak

canderson-lite
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 12, 2002
44,478
Melrose, MA
The continued complaining about the Garoppolo trade is crossed over to the absurd. There was a real option value to having JG on the team to start the year, so the team was right to set a high asking price. But somehow that is translated into "they didn't try to trade him".

When they did trade him, they also got a backup QB who knew the system, which also had some option value. Turns out they didn't need Hoyer, but no way to know that at the time the trade was made. Also, the 49'ers were 1-9 when the trade was made, so that 2nd was looking to be essentially a low first at the time. But someone in the media had a hot take that they could have gotten a high first for JG so the "Pats blew it" narrative is given far more life than it deserved.

Seems like Thuney was a miss. But stuff like that happens to every other team as well.
Bedard's point, right or wrong, was to highlight a pattern, of which Garoppolo is a part, whether you like it or not.

The odd part of Garoppolo was that the Pats seemed to play it halfway. They could have justified trading him in the offseason, or holding him and played out the string, but instead they held him for 8 weeks and then traded him.
Yet if Harris hangs onto the ball and Folk's kick goes through we are sitting here at 3-1. So, despite what you and others may think they are not that far away.
Point differential on the season +1.
 

lexrageorge

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 31, 2007
18,100
And there was the Chandler Jones trade, which they turned into Thuney and Malcolm Mitchell. Jamie Collins, too. I don't know off the top of my head what happened with that third round pick.
Actually, it's better that you don't know.

The 3rd round pick they got from Cleveland was subsequently traded, along with a 4th, to Detroit so that they could move up in the 3rd round and select Antonio Garcia, who never played a down. With the pick that the Lions got from the Browns via New England, Detroit selected Kenny Golladay, who probably would have come in handy these past couple of seasons.
 

lexrageorge

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 31, 2007
18,100
Bedard's point, right or wrong, was to highlight a pattern, of which Garoppolo is a part, whether you like it or not.

The odd part of Garoppolo was that the Pats seemed to play it halfway. They could have justified trading him in the offseason, or holding him and played out the string, but instead they held him for 8 weeks and then traded him.
Had they held on to him they would have received a compensation pick, as there was no way they could sign him to a new deal. So not sure what pattern the Garoppolo trade is part of, to be honest. They traded him for basically fair market value. And the option value of having him on the roster for 8 games was worth something in the offseason, whether you like it or not.
 

Cellar-Door

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 1, 2006
34,464
Bedard's point, right or wrong, was to highlight a pattern, of which Garoppolo is a part, whether you like it or not.

The odd part of Garoppolo was that the Pats seemed to play it halfway. They could have justified trading him in the offseason, or holding him and played out the string, but instead they held him for 8 weeks and then traded him.
Point differential on the season +1.
One thing I think people miss with Jimmy.... maybe they held him half a year to wait for a team to get desperate enough to meet the price. I get that people assume (often wrongly) that more games equals higher return, but it doesn't always. Sometimes you can get more for a guy later, because the needs of other teams change. There is some assumption that in the case of Jimmy, they could have gotten something better than an early 2nd for him... but there isn't really any evidence of that. It could well be that the best offer in the summer was a 2nd, and they waited until midway through the season because they knew the 2nd would still be there (in the process making the pick worse). Now some of the deals, yeah they probably could have gotten more, but they had other incentives. I mean we talk about the guys that they didn't trade early, but there are plenty of guys who they did the same with, but the guys ended up signing for what the Patriots were offerring and coming back. That's how it goes sometimes.

To me, I don't think any of these were particularly bad decisions.
Jimmy G... good trade.
Thuney... he would have been really valuable to us going forward, it was worth passing up a 3rd or 2nd, or whatever the best offer likely was to keep the chance of signing him.
Gilmore.. yeah maybe they should have traded him, but it looks like his market was weak, so they decided to try again in the summer but he got hurt.
 

RedOctober3829

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 19, 2005
55,300
deep inside Guido territory
But they didn’t and that’s a fact. And if Folk makes the kick Brady still has a minute to go with 2 timeouts only need a FG to win. There is no sure thing the Patriots win that game if that’s the case. Bill Parcells said years ago. You are what your record says you are. They are a 1-3 football team with massive issues on both lines and at linebacker.
Might as well pack it in and get ready for the top 5 in the draft then.
 

Soxy

Member
SoSH Member
Dec 1, 2008
6,095
Seems like Thuney was a miss. But stuff like that happens to every other team as well.
Real quick on this, since a few posters have mentioned it, but I think they handled Thuney fine. I think it was Lazar who said on a recent podcast that they really wanted to keep him. Once they got into a bidding war with KC, and the money went to a place they weren’t comfortable, they walked away.

The reason they didn’t trade him is because they wanted to keep him. When the money got crazy, they went out. Seems reasonable to me. Didn’t work out ideally, but that’s going to happen sometimes. Maybe they should have had more foresight that the money was going to be out of hand and traded him a year prior, but I have a hard time getting worked up about it.
 

Cellar-Door

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 1, 2006
34,464
Yeah, I think it gets missed that you can't just trade every good player you have before the last year of his deal, it doesn't work as a team building strategy, because even if you get "good" draft pick return, the odds are those picks aren't going to be as good as the guy you lost for at least a few years, likely never.

I look at guys who have been key to the SB runs... KVN, Chung, Andrews, Hightower. All guys they could have traded, but chose to take a chance on extending or re-signing. I mean Hightower was out of the building taking meetings. Would they have been better off to trade him for a 3rd? No, because the chance to sign him was more valuable. Sometimes you get blown out of the water by an unexpected bid and the guy walks... that's life, but just always trading guys 1-2 years before new contract time isn't sustainable as a strategy if you want to win SuperBowls.
 

lexrageorge

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 31, 2007
18,100
One thing I think people miss with Jimmy.... maybe they held him half a year to wait for a team to get desperate enough to meet the price. I get that people assume (often wrongly) that more games equals higher return, but it doesn't always. Sometimes you can get more for a guy later, because the needs of other teams change. There is some assumption that in the case of Jimmy, they could have gotten something better than an early 2nd for him... but there isn't really any evidence of that. It could well be that the best offer in the summer was a 2nd, and they waited until midway through the season because they knew the 2nd would still be there (in the process making the pick worse). Now some of the deals, yeah they probably could have gotten more, but they had other incentives. I mean we talk about the guys that they didn't trade early, but there are plenty of guys who they did the same with, but the guys ended up signing for what the Patriots were offerring and coming back. That's how it goes sometimes.

To me, I don't think any of these were particularly bad decisions.
Jimmy G... good trade.
Thuney... he would have been really valuable to us going forward, it was worth passing up a 3rd or 2nd, or whatever the best offer likely was to keep the chance of signing him.
Gilmore.. yeah maybe they should have traded him, but it looks like his market was weak, so they decided to try again in the summer but he got hurt.
When the trade was made, it appeared to be a very high second, so not sure how they made the pick worse. San Francisco winning made the pick worse.

Meanwhile, so I don't want to do work right now, I tried to follow that pick, which was 43rd in the 2018 draft. Pats traded it to Detroit for a 2nd and a 4th (#117) in the same draft. The Lions picked Kerryon Johnson, who hasn't done a whole lot (2nd round picks are such a crapshoot).

Both picks were also traded. The 2nd rounder (#51 overall) was traded to the Bears for a 2018 4th rounder (#105) and a 2019 second. The Bears selected Anthony Miller. That 4th rounder was traded to the Browns for a 4th (114) and a 6th (178); Cleveland drafted Antonio Callaway. The 4th was traded for a 2019 3rd; the Lions selected De'Shawn Hand. The Pats kept the 6th and drafted Christian Sam.

The 117th pick was traded to Tampa, along with the Pats own second rounder, for another 2nd rounder that turned into Duke Dawson.

That left a 2nd (56) and 3rd round pick (73) in 2019. The Pats traded the 2nd and another 3rd to the Rams to move up 11 spots and pick Joejuan Williams. The Pats got that 3rd rounder back in a subsequent trade and drafted Yodny Cajuste. The 3rd rounder was traded (along with a 6th) to the Bears for a 3rd, a 5th, and 2020 4th rounder. The 3rd round pick was used to select Damien Harris. The 5th was traded along with a 7th to the Vikings for another 5th that turned into Byron Cowart.

That 2020 4th rounder was packaged with 2 other picks (a 4th and a 2021 6th) to the Jets for a 3rd, which the Pats used to select Dalton Keene.

Basically, Christian Sam, Duke Dawson, Dalton Keene, and Damien Harris was the eventual return, although other trades factored in.
 

jsinger121

@jsinger121
SoSH Member
Jul 25, 2005
17,677
Might as well pack it in and get ready for the top 5 in the draft then.
To me that isn’t the worst thing at all. They need help on both sides of the ball in a massive way. I see this season maybe similar to the 1993 Patriots or the 1995 Patriots or even the 2000 Patriots where they are competitive but lose a ton of close games and get a top 10 pick they desperately need to rebuild both sides of the line. Worked out well when they drafted McGinest 4th overall in 1994 and when they took Richard Seymour 6th in 2001. They need cornerstone pieces and having one horrendous season out of the last 25 years is something I am ok with if they can hit in the draft. It’s been 21 years since they had a double digit loss season and only 3 times since 1993. With Tom Brady no more it’s going to make things a lot tougher to cover up for.
 

Silverdude2167

Member
SoSH Member
Oct 9, 2006
4,684
Amstredam
When the trade was made, it appeared to be a very high second, so not sure how they made the pick worse. San Francisco winning made the pick worse.

Meanwhile, so I don't want to do work right now, I tried to follow that pick, which was 43rd in the 2018 draft. Pats traded it to Detroit for a 2nd and a 4th (#117) in the same draft. The Lions picked Kerryon Johnson, who hasn't done a whole lot (2nd round picks are such a crapshoot).

Both picks were also traded. The 2nd rounder (#51 overall) was traded to the Bears for a 2018 4th rounder (#105) and a 2019 second. The Bears selected Anthony Miller. That 4th rounder was traded to the Browns for a 4th (114) and a 6th (178); Cleveland drafted Antonio Callaway. The 4th was traded for a 2019 3rd; the Lions selected De'Shawn Hand. The Pats kept the 6th and drafted Christian Sam.

The 117th pick was traded to Tampa, along with the Pats own second rounder, for another 2nd rounder that turned into Duke Dawson.

That left a 2nd (56) and 3rd round pick (73) in 2019. The Pats traded the 2nd and another 3rd to the Rams to move up 11 spots and pick Joejuan Williams. The Pats got that 3rd rounder back in a subsequent trade and drafted Yodny Cajuste. The 3rd rounder was traded (along with a 6th) to the Bears for a 3rd, a 5th, and 2020 4th rounder. The 3rd round pick was used to select Damien Harris. The 5th was traded along with a 7th to the Vikings for another 5th that turned into Byron Cowart.

That 2020 4th rounder was packaged with 2 other picks (a 4th and a 2021 6th) to the Jets for a 3rd, which the Pats used to select Dalton Keene.

Basically, Christian Sam, Duke Dawson, Dalton Keene, and Damien Harris was the eventual return, although other trades factored in.
This was great, thanks for it.
 

Super Nomario

Member
SoSH Member
Nov 5, 2000
14,012
Mansfield MA
Real quick on this, since a few posters have mentioned it, but I think they handled Thuney fine. I think it was Lazar who said on a recent podcast that they really wanted to keep him. Once they got into a bidding war with KC, and the money went to a place they weren’t comfortable, they walked away.

The reason they didn’t trade him is because they wanted to keep him. When the money got crazy, they went out. Seems reasonable to me. Didn’t work out ideally, but that’s going to happen sometimes. Maybe they should have had more foresight that the money was going to be out of hand and traded him a year prior, but I have a hard time getting worked up about it.
At the point they franchised Thuney, it seems to me it wasn't very realistic they were going to re-sign him. Presumably they would have talked prior to the 2020 season about an extension and couldn't work something out, leading to the tag ... why would things change in a year?

The contract Thuney got with KC isn't that much more than he made on the tag anyway - $16 MM / yr vs almost $15 MM on the tag. So if they were really serious about re-signing him, I'm not sure why they wouldn't have matched.

Gilmore I think there was a window to trade him this past offseason but his injury scuttled that; nothing the team could really do at that point. Thuney to me is more of an unforced error.

Yeah, I think it gets missed that you can't just trade every good player you have before the last year of his deal, it doesn't work as a team building strategy, because even if you get "good" draft pick return, the odds are those picks aren't going to be as good as the guy you lost for at least a few years, likely never.

I look at guys who have been key to the SB runs... KVN, Chung, Andrews, Hightower. All guys they could have traded, but chose to take a chance on extending or re-signing. I mean Hightower was out of the building taking meetings. Would they have been better off to trade him for a 3rd? No, because the chance to sign him was more valuable. Sometimes you get blown out of the water by an unexpected bid and the guy walks... that's life, but just always trading guys 1-2 years before new contract time isn't sustainable as a strategy if you want to win SuperBowls.
I largely agree, although it's worth noting that often the Pats would get a comp pick for a player that left in FA. They got a 4th for Van Noy, for instance. That's not huge in the grand scheme of things, but it definitely adds to the calculus of the value of trading a guy when you stand to get something for him anyway. The problem with Gilmore and Thuney is they missed out on the comp pick, too. Gilmore wasn't eligible as a 10-year guy, and Thuney's compensatory value was cancelled out by the offseason spending spree (but they probably would have gotten a 3rd had they let him walk after 2019).
 

Soxy

Member
SoSH Member
Dec 1, 2008
6,095
At the point they franchised Thuney, it seems to me it wasn't very realistic they were going to re-sign him. Presumably they would have talked prior to the 2020 season about an extension and couldn't work something out, leading to the tag ... why would things change in a year?

The contract Thuney got with KC isn't that much more than he made on the tag anyway - $16 MM / yr vs almost $15 MM on the tag. So if they were really serious about re-signing him, I'm not sure why they wouldn't have matched.

Gilmore I think there was a window to trade him this past offseason but his injury scuttled that; nothing the team could really do at that point. Thuney to me is more of an unforced error.


I largely agree, although it's worth noting that often the Pats would get a comp pick for a player that left in FA. They got a 4th for Van Noy, for instance. That's not huge in the grand scheme of things, but it definitely adds to the calculus of the value of trading a guy when you stand to get something for him anyway. The problem with Gilmore and Thuney is they missed out on the comp pick, too. Gilmore wasn't eligible as a 10-year guy, and Thuney's compensatory value was cancelled out by the offseason spending spree (but they probably would have gotten a 3rd had they let him walk after 2019).
I’m not sure why you’re just looking at AAV, which is only one part of the puzzle. Total money, signing bonus, and years were probably the breaking point. I highly doubt AAV had anything to do with it.
 

tims4wins

PN23's replacement
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
37,069
Hingham, MA
At the time I was pretty upset that the Niners won all those games and made the pick worse. Here are picks 33-42 in that draft. Who would the Pats have drafted that would be helpful today? Forget the RBs because they drafted Sony that year.

To be clear I'm not saying that the pick slipping didn't hurt the Pats. I just don't know these guys too well and I'm genuinely curious who might have been a fit on the Pats.

33 Austin Corbett
34 Will Hernandez
35 Nick Chubb
36 Darius Leonard
37 Braden Smith
38 Ronald Jones
39 James Daniels
40 Cortland Sutton
41 Harold Landry
42 Mike Gesicki
 

rodderick

Member
SoSH Member
Apr 24, 2009
12,751
Belo Horizonte - Brazil
At the time I was pretty upset that the Niners won all those games and made the pick worse. Here are picks 33-42 in that draft. Who would the Pats have drafted that would be helpful today? Forget the RBs because they drafted Sony that year.

To be clear I'm not saying that the pick slipping didn't hurt the Pats. I just don't know these guys too well and I'm genuinely curious who might have been a fit on the Pats.

33 Austin Corbett
34 Will Hernandez
35 Nick Chubb
36 Darius Leonard
37 Braden Smith
38 Ronald Jones
39 James Daniels
40 Cortland Sutton
41 Harold Landry
42 Mike Gesicki
Darius Leonard, Mike Gesicki, Harold Landry and Cortland Sutton would have been really nice pieces. Braden Smith has been a pretty solid guard too.
 

Cellar-Door

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 1, 2006
34,464
At the time I was pretty upset that the Niners won all those games and made the pick worse. Here are picks 33-42 in that draft. Who would the Pats have drafted that would be helpful today? Forget the RBs because they drafted Sony that year.

To be clear I'm not saying that the pick slipping didn't hurt the Pats. I just don't know these guys too well and I'm genuinely curious who might have been a fit on the Pats.

33 Austin Corbett
34 Will Hernandez
35 Nick Chubb
36 Darius Leonard
37 Braden Smith
38 Ronald Jones
39 James Daniels
40 Cortland Sutton
41 Harold Landry
42 Mike Gesicki
Corbett started out pretty bad for the Browns who traded him for a 5th, but is good now for the Rams as their starting guard the last 2 years. He'd be very nice to have.
Hernandez has been wildly inconsistent for the Giants, good 1st year then disappointing.
Darius Leonard is a monster
Smith is a good RT/G who has started for the Colts since mid-way through his rookie year (he just got a 4/70 new contract)
Daniels was a good G/C his first two years, had a season ending pec injury and hasn't been quite the same since
Sutton is a #1 WR, who has battled injuries
Landry is a useful edge rusher
Gesicki is a pretty decent TE.

Honestly any of them would probably be contributors for us right now, with COrbett/Leonard/Smith/Sutton likely to be key players
 

tims4wins

PN23's replacement
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
37,069
Hingham, MA
Darius Leonard, Mike Gesicki, Harold Landry and Cortland Sutton would have been really nice pieces. Braden Smith has been a pretty solid guard too.
But do we think the Pats would have actually drafted any of those guys? Like I can’t see them drafting Gesicki or Sutton in those spots. Possibly Smith or Leonard I guess?
 

Super Nomario

Member
SoSH Member
Nov 5, 2000
14,012
Mansfield MA
I’m not sure why you’re just looking at AAV, which is only one part of the puzzle. Total money, signing bonus, and years were probably the breaking point. I highly doubt AAV had anything to do with it.
FWIW I looked at the way the Thuney deal is structured and as long as he's there 3 years it basically does wind up just being AAV. $48 MM for 3 years, $64 for 4, $80 for 5.
 

Soxy

Member
SoSH Member
Dec 1, 2008
6,095
FWIW I looked at the way the Thuney deal is structured and as long as he's there 3 years it basically does wind up just being AAV. $48 MM for 3 years, $64 for 4, $80 for 5.
You're missing my point. I don't think the Pats were hung up on what Thuney's AAV would be. The $48 mil in guaranteed money over 5 years was far more likely to be the sticking point.

The only FA who got more guaranteed money than Thuney was Trent Williams. The only FAs who got contracts of 5 years or more were Williams, Thuney, Corey Linsley, and Bud Dupree.

I don't think the Pats were hung up about paying Thuney $15-16 mil/yr, as evidenced by the fact that they did just that in 2020. I don't think they wanted to go to 5 years and almost $50 mil in guaranteed money. That was the hang up. Not the AAV.
 

SMU_Sox

queer eye for the next pats guy
SoSH Member
Jul 20, 2009
8,878
Dallas
They weren’t going to be interested in Leonard because Bill has never taken a sub 240 pound LB on days 1-2. Not his type.
 

Van Everyman

Member
SoSH Member
Apr 30, 2009
26,993
Newton
I think one factor that may be not getting enough play here is that unlike the previous deals with Collins and Seymour, there was value to the team in keeping Thuney and Gilmore on the roster during a rebuilding year. Thuney in that he played an important role making last year’s offensive line among the team’s best and a culture guy as Brady walked out the door. Gilmore you saw coaching up the secondary during preseason. As great as DMac is, he’s old at this point and I think age matters when it comes to conveying things like “This team has a future, you should stay here.”

Are either of those enough to suck up getting so little return? I’m not sure. But I do think that side of things is being overlooked a bit when you think we got “nothing” for keeping these guys.
 

rodderick

Member
SoSH Member
Apr 24, 2009
12,751
Belo Horizonte - Brazil
I think one factor that may be not getting enough play here is that unlike the previous deals with Collins and Seymour, there was value to the team in keeping Thuney and Gilmore on the roster during a rebuilding year. Thuney in that he played an important role making last year’s offensive line among the team’s best and a culture guy as Brady walked out the door. Gilmore you saw coaching up the secondary during preseason. As great as DMac is, he’s old at this point and I think age matters when it comes to conveying things like “This team has a future, you should stay here.”

Are either of those enough to suck up getting so little return? I’m not sure. But I do think that side of things is being overlooked a bit when you think we got “nothing” for keeping these guys.
I think the "culture" aspect is highly overrated in football. You create culture by winning, not by keeping guys who have already won. If you know a rebuild is coming, what good does it do to keep Gilmore one more season in which you're pretty sure you'll suck (hence the "look, we sold out for Super Bowls and now we could only afford this team, guys" comments) just so he can mentor Joejuan Williams or something? They probably thought he'd play ball with the contract and he didn't, it's the only explanation I have.