Comparing Jimmy Garoppolo trade value to other quarterback trades
By Peter Panacy
Jimmy Garoppolo Market, Trade No. 4: Jets trade Sam Darnold to Panthers
The biggest high-caliber quarterback trade from last offseason was the Detroit Lions shipping off quarterback Matthew Stafford to the team that beat the Niners in the NFC Championship game, the Los Angeles Rams.
Jimmy Garoppolo is nowhere near Stafford’s level, so the multitude of first-round picks, a third-rounder and Rams quarterback Jared Goff won’t equate.
However, another move that was notable was the New York Jets moving a former first-round quarterback gone bust, Sam Darnold, to the Carolina Panthers in exchange for Carolina’s second-, fourth- and a 2021 sixth-round picks.
New York easily realized Darnold was never going to work out with the Jets, especially amid the regime change with former San Francisco defensive coordinator Robert Saleh at the helm and the No. 2 overall pick in last year’s draft (used to select BYU quarterback Zach Wilson), and there’s also no doubting the fact Garoppolo is vastly superior than Darnold, too, both in terms of the latter’s efforts with New York and the one year in Carolina.
The 2021 quarterbacking market was much more favorable to QB-needy teams, too, so one has to figure a would-be Garoppolo trade would command much more than just a second-round pick alone based on this deal for Darnold.