Rap Sheet Rewind: Ian Rapoport's Top 5 Trade Reports 'GMFB'
NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport presents to "Good Morning Football" his five best trades that he got to break himself.
Video Transcript
For me this was the 5 most memorable trades I've broken, so not the biggest trades.
There's plenty of big ones that didn't make the list, but the ones that are memorable to me over the last 14 or 15 years.
Wait, take it away, rap.
All right, we will start with the Carolina Panthers trading Christian McCaffrey to the San Francisco Forty-Niners.
This was a huge deal at the time.
Rarely do you have a star player going from one team to another in the middle of the season.
The reason though why this is memorable to me, because this was a Thursday night and I was told pretty early.
In the night, you don't have to worry that this is probably going to wait until the next morning, kiss of death, right?
So I go to a charity poker event that night and generally at these events, you know, you have a cocktail or 2 or maybe 3, you play poker all night, then you go home and then I had GMFB the next morning, and that's that.
So maybe I had one drink or something like that, not very much, and I get a text.
It's like, hey, we're still on this, and I'm like, what does that mean?
It's like, could the McCaffrey trade happen tonight?
Could it happen tonight?
And I'm texting and I'm texting.
Everybody stops responding.
So at this point it's like 10:50 and I literally get up from the table, cash out my chips, and go, I gotta go.
And they're like, why?
And I'm like, I think something's about to happen.
Went home, walked in the door, sat down, 11:22 at night, the Carolina Panthers traded Christian McCaffrey to the 49ers, and the text I got was like.
Yeah, when we don't respond, like that's when you know it's going down, and that to me is something I'll never forget.
Very happy I left my charity poker night to go deal with that trade.
Number 4, the New York Jets trading Sauce Gardner to the Indianapolis Colts this year during the trade deadline, and this was one that, to me, I have to be honest, was a little bit stunning.
I had inquired with the Jets earlier in the day, heard you have something big going on, not Quinnin.
And they're like, no, no, nothing, you know, we'll let you know, like everybody says, and I'm like, OK, that's weird, but like I heard something big is happening.
Maybe I'm wrong.
Then I get a call from out of the blue.
Jets are trading Sauce Garner to the Colts.
It's massive.
OK, I gotta go.
And I'm like, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.
Read this to this, read the words back to this person.
Yes, it is real.
This person was integrally involved.
Oh my God, this is happening.
Hit send before I could even get a picture, and the entire internet exploded.
Totally stunning and an extremely fun one to break in at that point because I'm surrounded by a bunch of Jets fans.
Everyone in the world texted me, and which is a great thing to happen, especially when I end up breaking the trade.
Number 3.
Memorable one for me.
Baker Mayfield going from the Cleveland Browns to the Carolina Panthers, and you know this is one where we knew the Browns were going to trade him.
We thought it was the Panthers.
There was a lot going on.
There was financial complications.
There was all sorts of things.
We thought it was going to happen, but it could have happened literally at any point in the offseason.
I'm on the 16th hole at congressional.
In Washington DC playing with my buddy Brent and my phone starts to light up and it's like, yo, that trade's about to happen.
I'm like, what do you mean?
Like it's about to happen.
I'm like, oh my God .
Well, I'm literally playing golf.
And so the person says, Listen, we got to inform all the parties.
I believe they had to tell Sam Darnold that they were doing this trade before, right?
So it's like, don't do anything, don't do anything.
I'm like, all right, well, you ought to give me the thumbs up emoji when I can hit send.
And so I give, but I'm in the, I'm in the bunker and I gotta hit the shot, otherwise the group behind us is gonna go.
I give the phone to my buddy Brett and I'm like, listen, if you see a, a text pop up, you gotta hit send.
He's like, I'm not gonna, I'm like, you gotta hit send.
So he holds the phone.
I hit my bunker shot, bladed over the green, terrible shot.
Take the phone back, get the thumbs up emoji, hit send, break the trade, bomb my drive the next hole.
That was a fantastic moment for me.
Uh, number 2.
And this was one that will just be forever one of my favorite moments covering the NFL ever.
Rob Gronkowski gets traded from the New England Patriots to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Remember that year Gronk was retired.
He was on TV.
He was, I believe, doing some sort of marketing for a marijuana company or something like that because they got a great picture of him with my boys, but he's wearing a leaf on his shirt, which is great and weird, um, and there's all these rumors of like when Gronk is going to come back.
I'm doing calls uh for the draft, for draft prep, and talking to someone I know well , and all he says to me is, hey, you're on this Gronk stuff, right?
Like, what do you mean?
He goes, you know, the Gronk trade.
I'm like, no, I do not know.
He's like, you know, Gronk getting traded to the Bucks.
I'm like, is this actually happening?
He goes, you probably should make some calls, dude.
I'm like, no, no, no, no.
And then the person hangs up.
In 6 minutes.
I get 3 people with intricate knowledge of this trade.
I'm able to hit send on.
Rob Gronkowski has informed the Patriots that he wants to be traded to the Bucks and the deal is in the works, and the internet exploded like it almost never does, and I will never forget that moment because that was certainly one of the biggest things I broke into that time.
Number 1, here we go.
Number 1, folks, this is not recency bias, although it did just happen very recently.
Um, Miles Garrett going from the Cleveland Browns to Los Angeles Rams.
This is the one.
This is, I, I found out Saturday morning as I was on my way to Dick's Sporting Goods to go break in Jude's new catcher's mitt because he hurt his thumb, needed a different catcher's mitt with a little more padding.
Did a shout out to White Plains.
Yep, they did, they do a great job over there.
Um, and so I pulled over on the side of the road to get a call from a person intricately involved.
And it's like, you should keep your eye on this.
48 hours was stressful, man, because I, I knew that very, very few people knew.
Tried absolutely my best to keep it.
I told literally no one, I had zero conversations, told no one, because it could not break.
This had to be ultimate surprise and to hit send on a tweet with me and Adam Schefter and Tom Pellisaro, uh, an unbelievable triumvirate and watch the internet just completely melt down.
Um, and then do an hour straight of TV to celebrate.
That was fun, and that is a trade that is going to take us through next season because it's so impactful and so, so fun.
