Pats offered Brady to 49ers in 2017

Let’s pretend.

What if, in October 2017, Patriots coach Bill Belichick offered to trade Tom Brady to the 49ers instead of Jimmy Garoppolo?

According to Bleacher Report’s Matt Miller, that’s not a hypothetical.

Let’s set the Way Back machine to the fall of 2017. The Pats are coming off a Super Bowl loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. Tom Brady is 40. And, Miller reports, Jimmy G. is a hot property.

Miller quotes a current director of player personnel as saying, “We were calling Bill once a week, I swear to God, trying to get Jimmy. You might not remember this, but at the time, no one loved the (2018) quarterback class in the draft, and Garoppolo was set to be a free agent. Common sense says you trade him. And Belichick is the best at this — shipping off guys for draft picks — so we thought it would be an easy trade.”

It was, for 49ers GM John

Lynch, who filched Garoppolo from New England for a second round pick. But not before Belichick tried to pass Brady onto the 49ers, Miller reports. But Patriots owner Robert Kraft forbade Belichick from offloading the GOAT.

Let’s pretend that Brady caught wind of Belichick’s plan to trade him and keep

Garoppolo.

We don’t have to pretend. Miller’s source says it’s true.

“Brady, Belichick and Kraft haven’t been the same since Tom learned that Bill was ready to get rid of him. And that lit a fire under his (hindquarters).”

If you take Miller’s reporting at face value, the pieces fit. A highly motivated Brady leads the Patriots to a Super Bowl in 2018. And then walks away from the Patriots after 20 remarkable years under Belichick to throw in with the … Buccaneers?

“Brady got to Tampa after a stone-cold wait for free agency and for a contract that kept New England from franchise-tagging him,” Miller wrote. “It was shrewd, but it shouldn’t have been unexpected from a quarterback who made a living picking apart defenses with poise and a chess-like ability to plan ahead.”

Makes a good story, right?