What to make of weird Eagles-Garoppolo trade buzz

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If you hang out on the Philadelphia sports corner of the internet, chances are good you've run into a jersey swap of Jimmy Garoppolo in midnight green or a tweet freaking out at Howie Roseman over some reported interest in trading for the 49ers quarterback this offseason.

Before you go nuclear, I'm here to tell you: that buzz is fabricated. Is there a tiny, theoretical chance that Roseman trades for Garoppolo? Yes, because he's an NFL player and Roseman is in charge of an NFL team. 

But this current sweep of trade noise is extremely overblown, a result of twisted words and a good look at how the internet's rumor mill can run amok.

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Here's what happened.

On Monday, Sports Illustrated insider Albert Breer tossed a note at the bottom of his Monday Morning Quarterback column looking at Garoppolo's trade value. Here's what Breer wrote:

"While we’re there, it’s really hard to assess the trade value of Jimmy Garoppolo. The reason? We still don’t know which quarterbacks are going to be available. There’s a good group of suitors out there ready to take a major swing at the position (the Broncos, Eagles, Panthers and Commanders)."

Here's what you should take away from this note: the Eagles are a suitor for the quarterback position as a whole, and their involvement (or non-involvement) in a trade will be part of what shapes the QB trade market - including Garoppolo's market.

Here's what you should NOT take away from this note: the Eagles are a specific suitor for Garoppolo.

But not everyone connected those dots successfully.

Later that day an extremely spicy headline was published on Outkick exclaiming "EAGLES EXPECTED TO PURSUE QB JIMMY GAROPPOLO DURING OFFSEASON" while citing Breer, who was - again - not reporting that the Eagles are specifically pursuing Garoppolo but rather are looking at the entire QB market and will be part of setting it.

And then on Friday morning, an unverified Twitter account called NFL Rumors tweeted "The Philadelphia have had rumored interest in Seahawks Russell Wilson and now we are hearing 49ers Jimmy Garoppolo as well", without any citation or explanation. The tweet generated some moderate traction.

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That's a whole lot of trade chatter... that came from nowhere.

Now, for a view from someone who would know, ESPN insider Adam Schefter talked Wednesday about the Garoppolo-to-the-Eagles buzz:

"I don't see that happening. I have not heard his name floated once. That's not to say it couldn't happen or wouldn't happen, I just have not heard his name connected to Philadelphia."

Schefter acknowledges, as I did earlier, that it is theoretically possible for that trade to happen, just as it's theoretically possible that the Eagles could trade for any player in the league.

But for now? There's nothing to this rumor. It's smoke with no fire.

As Kendrick Perkins would say, carry the hell on.

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