In his place, no one can be sure except Bill Belichick and his collection of operatives, but the picture is much more clear in San Francisco, where Jimmy Garoppolo has ascended from Prince-in-waiting status with the Patriots to Top Cat with the 49ers as their starting quarterback - at least through the end of this season.
Garoppolo was traded to the San Francisco 49ers in exchange for a 2018 second round draft pick on Monday evening, leaving a void in the Patriots' quarterback room and on their depth chart, as Belichick will briefly be without a backup to legendary signal caller Tom Brady.
Reaction in New England has been a mixed bag of Halloween candy - some liking the move as a way to get something for Grop before he hits free agency while others were running around like chicken little, wondering when the sky will start falling - the common thread being curiosity, not as to why he was dealt, but why now?
There were unsubstantiated rumors during the offseason and approaching the 2017 Draft that the Cleveland Browns had made Belichick a "Corleone" offer for the Eastern Illinois product - and apparently there was some sort of an offer, but reportedly not an offer he couldn't refuse - so Belichick decided to hold onto Garoppolo.
At the time, I first mused that if Belichick was going to deal Garoppolo before the season, that "The smart money has Garoppolo going to San Francisco for a second round draft pick and a myriad of mid-round picks." - but also that if Belichick didn't deal him then, that he was holding out until the trade deadline, hoping that some quarterback-needy team with a shot at the playoffs would emerge with a ridiculous offer.
As it turns out the team was a winless 49ers team with an eye towards the future and plenty of cap space, for the aforementioned second round pick.
Garoppolo is a perfect player to build a team around. He has spent three-plus seasons honing his craft under the tutelage of the greatest quarterback that has ever played the game - with two Super Bowl rings as Brady's understudy as proof of the mastery of his tutor - and is a somewhat proven commodity, having started two games last season filling in for Brady.
He is everything that you could want in a quarterback. He stands tall in the pocket and seems to have a sixth-sense in feeling pressure in the pocket without taking his eyes off of his progression of targets - he's still young, has very little mileage on his body and offers the poise and experience that is seldom found in quarterbacks coming out of college, no matter their draft position.
But what makes Garoppolo a perfect fit for San Francisco's offense is that his eyes are tied to his feet.
Garoppolo has the footwork of a much more experienced quarterback, and was regarded to have the best mechanics coming out of college since Dan Marino came out of Pitt in 1983: his arm always cocked, his feet are always balanced underneath him, and he moves them in tandem with his eyes so that there is very little wasted movement.
His stance is compact and streamlined, so that when he catches one of his reads open, he can fire quickly - all of these things commenting on the fact that he has the quickest release in the game, following the tenets that made Marino great which his father called "Up and Out", which means to be stand tall in the pocket, have your arm cocked, then when you see your target bring the ball up and fire it out in one motion.
He's no Marino, but he's mobile, young and is movie star handsome - he has the features of a young Christopher Reeve and has been called "Prince Ali" by those who liken his looks to the main character in Disney's classic animated feature Aladdin - all perfect to lead the return of the 49er's franchise to the top of the football world.
And his departure from New England does not come without some regrets within the organization that they couldn't hang onto him for the long run.
"We probably had, in my opinion, the best quarterback situation in the league for the last - let's call it two-and-a-half years." Belichick said on Tuesday morning, "It's just not sustainable give the way things are set up. It's definitely not something we wanted to walk away from and I felt we rode it out as long as we could."
Continuing his soliloquy, Belichick hinted at the cause of the separation, which feeds into the notion that Garoppolo wanted to be a starter in the league now, and would not be pacified with any amount of money to wait for Brady to retire.
"We, over a period of time, explored every option possible to try and sustain it, but just at this point felt like we had to make a decision. It's a very complex situation on multiple levels and this is really the last window that we had and we did what we felt like was best for the team."
So "Jimmy Clipboard" finally becomes "Jimmy Football", and there's not many Patriots' fans that would disagree that the San Francisco 49ers are getting a quality signal caller.
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