On Wednesday, the Patriots traded cornerback Stephon Gilmore to the Panthers in exchange for a 2023 sixth-round pick.
A day later, NFL Media's Ian Rapoport joined Gresh & Keefe and gave his thoughts on the move, which included being surprised at the return.
“To me, I was surprised that more teams didn’t jump in and try and trade for him," he said. "I am surprised it had to be the thing where you make clear that you’re moving on from him and then someone tries to trade for him before 4 p.m. I thought they would have had a better trade market. That was surprising.”
One reason why? Teams didn't like what they saw, even before the quad injury.
“I talked to some of the teams who were evaluating [Wednesday] and they did not love the tape last year," Rapoport said.
Rapoport also noted both the Patriots and Gilmore didn't want things to end the way that they did, but that it could not have gone any other way at this point.
“The fact that they did just a clean break, it’s not what anyone wanted, I think both sides probably wished it would have happened differently, but it was a fundamental disagreement that saw no end," he said.
