NFL insider speculates that Bill Belichick rejected trade offers from the Browns to protect Jimmy Garoppolo's career

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• Earlier in the season, the New England Patriots traded quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo to the San Francisco 49ers in a move that surprised many.
• ESPN's Adam Schefter recently said that the decision to move him to San Francisco was not only made to help the Patriots, but also to help put Garoppolo in a position to succeed.
• Schefter believes that Bill Belichick's respect for John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan was a big factor in sending Garoppolo to the Niners.

Many were surprised when the New England Patriots traded quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo to the San Francisco 49ers earlier this season.

In exchange, the Patriots received only a second-round draft pick, and while football fans know how much Belichick values his draft picks, it's a shockingly small return for the man that had been designated Tom Brady's heir apparent.

But while teams normally do everything they can to squeeze the most value out of any asset, there's a reason that, in this case, the Patriots might have taken a bit less than market value to move Garoppolo to San Francisco.

According to ESPN's Adam Schefter, the deal between the Patriots and 49ers came together because head coach Bill Belichick thought that San Francisco was the right fit for Garoppolo.

While on the "Mac & Murph" show on Thursday, Schefter talked about some of the finer points of the deal, specifically, how Garoppolo could have ended up on another team.

"The Cleveland Browns had been calling the Patriots last spring over and over," Schefter said. "They tried apparently this fall and never got to first base with them."

Schefter theorized that the Patriots knew they had to move Garoppolo before the trade deadline, but that Belichick also wanted to put Garoppolo, who had been waiting in the wings in New England for four years, in a position to succeed.

"We have to trade him, and we've got to trade him here in the next two days," Schefter said, imagining the logic that the Patriots front office was going through while putting the deal together. "Where do we want to trade him? I like John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan. I think they're going to do right by Jimmy G. Let's call them."

Schefter again noted that he believes the Patriots' fondness for Garoppolo led them to want to put him somewhere he would shine, and that San Francisco made sense as a destination. 

"As much respect as the Patriots have for Jimmy Garoppolo, they wanted to place him in a place they thought would treat him the way that they thought he should be treated, and that was the 49ers."

The deal has been working out great for Garoppolo, who is now 3-0 in his starts with the Niners, including a late comeback win over the Titans on Sunday.

While football is usually viewed as a cutthroat, dog-eat-dog industry, the anecdote shows that even the most stoic of football figures can make moves that benefit both their team and the player that they're moving.

You can listen to Schefter talk about the deal in more detail below, starting at around the 5:30 mark.