Comparison: How much of a steal was the 49ers’ trade for Jimmy Garoppolo?

The San Francisco 49ers might have pulled off the steal of the decade by trading for quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo. Let’s look back at some notable comparisons.

Raise your hand if you still wake up excited the San Francisco 49ers somehow figured out a way to land quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo.

Looks like you’re among the many.

You know the story by now. New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick texted 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan and offered Garoppolo in exchange for just a second-round NFL Draft pick. That’s it. No two first rounders, not some lucrative trade package. A mere second rounder.

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A steal. Perhaps the greatest NFL heist this decade.

Belichick surely had his reasons, and that’s fine. The thing that counts is how much the Niners were beneficiaries. Like, a perfect 5-0 in Garoppolo-start beneficiaries.

What makes this deal a steal for San Francisco is easily determined by looking around the league at some of the other quarterback trades of late. A perfect example is the 2016 deal between the Philadelphia Eagles and Minnesota Vikings for Sam Bradford.

The Vikings gave up a 2017 first-round pick, along with a conditional fourth rounder in 2018, to the Eagles in exchange for Bradford. This was, of course, after the Eagles made their own massive move to grab Carson Wentz in the 2016 NFL Draft.

More on that in a second, but the Vikings were acting out of desperation. Remember, they just lost once-heralded QB Teddy Bridgewater to a horrendous knee injury.

Still, a first- and a fourth-round pick. All for an oft-injured Bradford.

NFL Draft-Day Trades

Those Eagles executed their own big deal to grab Wentz, moving up to the No. 2 overall spot in the 2016 draft with the Cleveland Browns.

To do so, Philadelphia sent off their own first-round pick that year, plus a third and fourth, in addition to a 2017 first rounder and 2018 third rounder. Cleveland also sent back a 2017 fourth-round pick, as well as the rights to draft Wentz.

In hindsight, the Eagles won the transaction. Wentz, despite missing the final portions of the 2017 regular season with an ACL injury, could easily have been the MVP last year. And he’s poised to be a franchise signal-caller for a long, long time.

Still, that was a lot to give up.

Same goes for the Los Angeles Rams, who moved up with the Tennessee Titans to the No. 1 spot that same year, grabbing former Cal QB Jared Goff in the process.

The Rams received the No. 1 overall pick, plus a fourth and a sixth rounder that year. But they also had to part ways with their own first-round pick that year, two 2016 second-round picks, a 2016 third rounder and their 2017 first- and third-round selections.

Yikes!

At first, it looked like the deal was a bust. Goff struggled his rookie year but has since turned it on under head coach Sean McVay. So far, so good… one might guess.

Then, of course, there was the 49ers’ own move in the 2017 NFL Draft, giving up a spot to the Chicago Bears to land Mitchell Trubisky, netting three additional picks in the process.

Now, with the 2018 NFL Draft on the table, SFGate.com’s Eric Branch puts yet another QB-likely deal on the table to consider:

Wentz, perhaps, is the lone quarterback out of this crop absolutely justifying the aggressive trade-up. Goff might be close, and Bradford was a head-scratcher. Maybe Trubisky, but we’re yet to see.

All the while, Garoppolo landed in San Francisco for arguably the biggest bargain price we’ve seen in a long, long time.

Next: 3 bold predictions for Jimmy Garoppolo in 2018

And putting the side-by-side comparisons into perspective, the Niners couldn’t consider themselves any luckier.