Adam Schefter REALLY thinks the Patriots aren't dealing Jimmy Garoppolo

This year for Lent, I'm giving up trying to keep up with Jimmy Garoppolo rumors.

...Starting tomorrow.

The prevailing notion right now is that the Patriots leaking that they're not dealing Garoppolo is just their way of saying "If you have to ask, big man, you can't afford it!" and they're trying to get a desperate team to pony up a boatload of picks for their backup quarterback.  Makes sense, right?  Why not try to play some teams against each other and see who's willing to send more than a first-rounder?

Schefty, however, is not convinced.

He's actually basically pushed all of his chips to the middle of the table on the bet that New England won't deal Garoppolo, even if the Browns offer the number one overall pick and their HBO GO password.  In an appearance on WEEI's Ordway, Merloni, and Fauria on Wednesday, ESPN's NFL Insider (insert a joke about ESPN's Patriots reporting here if you'd like) was pretty clear that New England isn't gaming the market, they're legitimately not interested in a trade.

Take it away, Adam!

"This is nothing about smoke, this is nothing about leverage, this is nothing about them not getting the price they wanted. This is about one thing plain and simple: they really like Jimmy Garoppolo and they don't want to get rid of Jimmy Garoppolo.  They think that good, young quarterbacks in this league are tough to come by.  It is the most valuable commodity there is.  If you don't have a good young quarterback, you are doomed."

"Again, Tom Brady is 40 years old.  He's been able to do it for an awful long time and again, I think they would love to see him do it for 10 more years, but who knows how much longer he is going to play for?"

Then they moved on to trade rumors, which is the "it" Schefter's referring to below:

"You guys can keep it alive and keep talking about it and keep wondering, but I am just telling you Jimmy Garoppolo is going to be on the Patriots in 2017 no matter who calls them and what anybody offers.  He's going to be on their roster this summer."

That's pretty definitive.

The whole pros-and-cons aspect of keeping Jimmy versus dealing Jimmy versus every other freaking permutation of trading for picks, players, or all of the above is more played out at this point than bacon jokes, so we're not going to get into it here.  What is worth taking as fact - if not gospel truth - is that Adam Schefter is about as plugged in as it gets, and he's really putting his name on the line pretty strongly here by doubling down on the Patriots having zero interest in dealing their impressive backup quarterback.

By the way, maybe this is only amusing to me, but part of what makes this whole trade scenario so ridiculous/entertaining is that every single NFL team had a chance to take Jimmy G in the 2014 draft, and took someone else instead.  Teams took dudes like Darqueze Dennard (Bengals), Johnny Manziel (no explanation necessary), Blake Bortles (Jaguars), Eric Ebron (Lions), and Greg Robinson (St. Louis, RIP), and...you get the idea.  And now the "price" to even sit at the table to play for Jimmy is supposedly at least a first-rounder.

Forget all these rumors and sources, I'm going to go make a sandwich.