Here’s your weekly Patriots and Josh Rosen rumors update

Right now we’re smack dab in the heyday of Smoke SZN, and it just wouldn’t be Smoke SZN if the Patriots weren’t linked to some star player who may or may not be available in a trade that they may or may not be interested in buying low on that they’re probably not interested in but you can never rule it out because the first rule of trading with Bill Belichick is “don’t trade with Bill Belichick”, and the second rule is you need to check your wrist after you shake hands to make sure your watch is still there.

Got that?

Cool. Now please enjoy this week’s episode of “RumorTyme”, it’s just like when Julian Edelman hosted the critically acclaimed and Emmy-award-winning BurgerTyme.

(Editor’s Note: BurgerTyme did not, in fact, win an Emmy, but it clearly got robbed because most critics are cynical a-holes, that’s just a fact.)

Anyway, if you’re like the millions of Americans (and presumably millions of other Patriots fans around the globe) that spent Monday morning avoiding doing any kind of actual work, odds are you may have stumbled on Sports Illustrated’s venerable Monday Morning Quarterback, which Peter King passed off to Albert Breer not too long ago. And even though most of us were almost certainly dragging because A) Mondays, am I right, and B) Final Four weekend is always a good excuse to get out and enjoy the games, after the Patriots were supposedly one of the teams that you could count on one hand that was at least looking into Cardinals quarterback Josh Rosen, this part of the MMQB was a little bit of a curveball:

(emphasis mine)

So if Cardinals GM Steve Keim and company decide Kyler Murray is the guy, what kind of time constraints are they working with? If they’re going to deal Rosen in 2019, it makes sense to do it before the draft. When Haskins, Lock, Jones and the draft’s other QBs get picked, that will shorten the pool of suitors that could drive Rosen’s value up. And as for the teams that have shown even the slightest interest in Rosen, I’ve been told the Dolphins, Redskins, Giants and Chargers have checked in.

Not only is this not Albert Breer’s first rodeo, he’s also a Boston guy, so there’s no way he’d leave New England off that list if he didn’t deliberately mean to imply “there’s nothing to see here with the Pats and Rosen, move along”

Right?

Well, kind of. Apparently we weren’t the only ones that caught that I’m-not-saying-I’m-just-saying in the morning column, cause by the time the Monday afternoon column went live, Breer had apparently already been lit up enough about the Patriots’ supposed interest (or lack thereof) that he had to throw this out there:

2. A few people asked me why the Patriots were not one of the four teams who touched base with the Cardinals about Josh Rosen (in MMQB earlier today, those teams were the Redskins, Dolphins, Giants and Chargers). I’ll tell you I wouldn’t be surprised if New England does wind up calling Arizona, and I also wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t. My understanding is the Patriots didn’t love Rosen last year, but that was within the context of moving up to take him high in the first round (the Cardinals drafted Rosenwith the No. 10 pick in 2018). Conversely, Bill Belichick loves the idea of buying low on players, and this could be an example of that—flipping a pick for a player with $6.24 million over three years left on his rookie deal, when his value is low—keeps me from ruling anything out.

So at the risk of reading way too far into both of these and trying to square it with the Pro Football Talk report from a couple weeks back, which is kind of what we do around here, none of these reports necessarily refute each other; it’s entirely possible that the world we live in is the one where all of the following are true:

1. Breer is right that the Pats weren’t hot on Rosen last year. This would check out logically, because if Baker Mayfield’s agent was right and New England was seriously wanting to trade up and grab Baker if Cleveland didn’t take him at #1 overall, Rosen stuck around for more than a few picks after that, and New England easily could’ve outbid Arizona for the trade-up to grab Josh if they wanted to.
2. PFT is right that the Patriots were interested in a trade, and very well may still be.
3. Either Arizona hasn’t gotten a shut-up-and-take-my-money offer that they thought was good enough yet, or they’re just playing these rumors like a fiddle through different sources and leaks to keep everyone frosty for the next few weeks.

So, yeah, that’s where we’re at. Patriots Nation certainly has the whole gamut of takes on whether it’d be worth it to pony up for Josh Rosen or not, the same as people are somehow STILL arguing about trading Jimmy G and whether mayo is actually good. (the condiment, not Jerod). We’re Massholes, after all, arguing is kind of our thing.

(Personally, I stand by my reasoning that it’d be a waste of resources to trade for Rosen at the moment given Tom Brady’s continued plans of doing the same thing he does every day and taking over the world, but despite what some of my ex-girlfriends may tell you, I’m certainly not narcissistic enough to think that’s the only way to look at it.)

So please, for all of our sake, please, NFL Draft, hurry up and get here. We’re all waiting and this quarterback situation is getting ridiculous and my friends all think I’ve gone full Carrie Mathison with all the pictures and maps and different colored strings and sticky notes stuck to my living room walls. We’re so tired.