ESPN’s Chris Mortensen has reported, with excellent elaboration via ESPN.com’s Tim Graham, that the Buccaneers offered a first-round and a third-round pick for quarterback Matt Cassel as part of the menage-a-trade that would have sent quarterback Matt Cassel to the Broncos and quarterback Jay Cutler to Tampa.
So why did the Pats pass?
A reader has shared with us this nugget from Michael Felger of WEEI. Put simply, the Bucs arrived at the party too late (and possibly with a cinnamon bobka).
If that’s the case, then it all makes sense.
But Mort says (via Graham) that the Broncos were willing to give up their own first-round pick — No. 12 overall in the draft — for Cassel. Under those circumstances, why didn’t Belichick bite?
We agree with Mortensen’s suggestion that Belichick would be less willing to help a former assistant coach than to help the front-office guy who helped set the table for those three Super Bowl victories in four year.
Mort also suggests that the Pats leaked word of the Broncos’ effort to trade Cutler to the Boston Globe as a way to mess with the Broncos.
Um, wow.
We only wish that the Broncos and Pats played each other twice per year. As a consolation, the Broncos and Chiefs still do.
UPDATE: Tom Curran also reports that the Bucs and Broncos showed up after Pats coach Bill Belichick had decided to pull the trigger on the trade with the Chiefs. Credit Chiefs G.M. Scott Pioli for: (1) knowing that the Patriots were ready to do something right away with Cassel; and (2) getting a number and placing his order while the other teams were still loitering in the lobby of Schnitzer’s.
per pft