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For some NFL organizations, their never-ending search for a franchise quarterback is more daunting than Frodo's trip into Mordor. At least the hobbit achieved his goal, whereas there are certain teams that haven't laid claim to a top signal-caller in decades.
Unfortunately, this is the wrong year for any team to have a major need at the game's most important position.
With each passing week, franchise quarterback prospects become more and more scarce. At this point, a strong argument can be made that no potential signal-caller available to the 2017 draft class is worth a high first-round selection.
As such, alternative options become more attractive. The most promising avenue may come via trade with the New England Patriots for the services of backup Jimmy Garoppolo.
The Patriots own the league's most talented stable of quarterbacks. Tom Brady is only part of the equation. Granted, the four-time Super Bowl winner is a large reason, but the team's depth behind the future Hall of Fame signal-caller is also quite impressive.
Said depth was on display when the Patriots opened the season 3-1 during Brady's league-mandated, appealed and arbitrarily upheld suspension.
A confluence of factors make Garoppolo such an intriguing target.
First and foremost, Brady's elvish good looks and level of play never need to fade. He's reached football immortality, and his quest is far from complete.
"This is my home now; this is where my family lives," Brady said upon his return from suspension, per NESN's Cameron McDonough. "It's a great place. I love being here, and I love being the quarterback of this team. Hopefully I can do it for a long time."
Even at 39 years old, Brady remains the NFL's best quarterback. Upon his arrival, the Patriots merged into a fellowship that cannot be stopped. The 11-time Pro Bowler has completed 75.2 percent of his passes with eight touchdowns and no interceptions this season.
Brady is even more effective when danger is lurking. According to Pro Football Focus, the Patriots quarterback's true accuracy percentage—which excludes drops, intentional throwaways, etc.—is 95 percent when pressured.
The fact New England is 3-0 with Brady in the lineup isn't a surprise when the sly signal-caller remains nearly perfect even when everything is crumbling down around him.
With his current level of play, one starts to think if he could actually play until he's 50 years old.
"I would love it," Brady said in a 2013 interview with Men's Health's Oliver Broudy. "If I think I can do it, then I probably will."
As such, Garoppolo's plight remains the same: to kiss Brady's rings instead of being handed the one ring to partake in the Patriots' grand adventure. He still serves as a secondary character in New England, but he can take over the lead role somewhere else. The 24-year-old signal-caller played exceptionally well in Brady's absence.
In his two starts, Garoppolo completed 71.2 percent of his passes for four touchdowns and no interceptions. The Eastern Illinois product no longer looked like a first- or second-year quarterback who came out of an Air Raid collegiate system. What stood out about his early-season performance was how effective and efficient—how Brady-like—he operated Bill Belichick and Josh McDaniels' offense.
Brady is still Brady, but Garoppolo's play placed him among the league's best, as Pro Football Talk's Michael David Smith noted:
His performance extended beyond near-perfect statistics. Granted, he would rank second in completion percentage—behind Brady—if he qualified. A high completion rate became the byproduct of getting the ball out quickly to the right read. How quickly? According to Pro Football Focus, his release from snap to the ball coming out his hand is the third fastest in the league and faster than Brady.
An argument can be made the Patriots operate a quarterback-friendly system. After all, only five quarterbacks have started a game this season and have yet to throw an interception, according to PFF Fantasy Football.
But that stance would ignore Garoppolo's natural skill set and advancement. Even at Eastern Illinois, the quarterback's quick release proved to be his greatest asset. Meanwhile, decisiveness is often determined by a growing understanding of responsibilities and an increased comfort level.
Garoppolo is now far more advanced in his knowledge of NFL passing principles after learning from the master. The most obvious example is when he puts the offense in the right play based on pre-snap reads. This is something that wasn't asked of him in college, yet he's now asked to do it on a regular basis.
"That experience, that game experience, you can't mimic that in practice," Garoppolo told the Providence Journal's Mark Daniels. "You do the best you can, but actually getting out there and bullets flying, the red jersey is off. Things change. It was a good experience, and it helped prove some things."
Unfortunately, he didn't get to show out in four straight games due to a shoulder injury suffered when driven to the ground by Miami Dolphins linebacker Kiko Alonso.
The injury essentially ended his season and possibly his time in New England. With no end in sight for Brady, Garoppolo isn't his likely successor. The 2014 second-round pick becomes a free agent after the 2017 campaign if he isn't traded beforehand.
"I really haven't [thought about it]," Garoppolo said, per Daniels. "For the most part, I don't really listen to the media to begin with, so that really helps. People tell me things from time to time, but it's all hearsay or 'this guy said this or that.' You never know what's going to happen."
Thus, teams with a massive need at quarterback would be wise to contact the Patriots with their best offer to see if Belichick is willing to part with his backup signal-caller.
The Nov. 1 trade deadline is rapidly approaching, and multiple teams should be desperate to acquire a quarterback. New England, meanwhile, has a fallback option in this year's third-round pick, Jacoby Brissett.
Plus, organizations should have a handle on where next year's quarterback class stands. What they'll find is no prospect potentially available in April has the appearance of an elite talent.
Too many become zealous in anointing a young signal-caller as the next big thing. No one denies the importance of the position, but a prospect shouldn't be driven up draft boards based purely on positional value. Mistakes like the Tennessee Titans' selection of Jake Locker or the Buffalo Bills with E.J. Manuel occur when a team overlooks legitimate value in a desperate attempt to address the game's most important position.
Three quarterbacks still continue to draw plenty of interest as potential first-round selections.
The Clemson Tigers' Deshaun Watson emerged as the preseason favorite to be the potential No. 1 overall pick next spring.
Watson developed into a top-flight quarterback during his sophomore campaign before being named a Heisman Trophy finalist. The Georgia native completed 67.8 percent of his passes for 4,108 yards, 35 touchdowns and 13 interceptions. The signal-caller also ran for 1,105 yards and eight scores. Due in part to his outstanding play, the Tigers appeared in last season's national championship game.
He's a dangerous two-way threat with the production and success necessary to turn heads.
As a passer, the true junior gets the ball out of his hand as fast as any quarterback, and he displays tremendous ball placement and accuracy when throwing in rhythm.
Upon closer inspection, his game doesn't hold up to NFL scrutiny.
First and foremost, Clemson's offensive scheme sets up his success as much as it does his failures. From a collegiate point of view, Watson is an ideal trendsetter and an elite quarterback. However, he isn't asked to regularly survey the field or work beyond his first or second options, and he often capitalizes on simple, half-field reads.
His production at Clemson speaks for itself. The question remains: How much transfers to the next level? At times, little does.
In fact, Watson is running less, throwing a little more and has become less effective as a result. ESPN.com's David Hale provided multiple examples of how the quarterback's athleticism is being used less this fall on designed run plays:
His overall accuracy is down four points off the 67.8 completion percentage he set during his first two seasons. Watson is down nearly six points on his true accuracy percentage, according to Pro Football Focus.
System and a dip in overall play aren't the only concerns. Stature will come into play as well.
At a listed 6'3" and 215 pounds, can Watson hold up to the rigors of the NFL? Those measurements may be a tad generous, and the mobile quarterback could take a beating at the next level. Injuries haven't been an issue this or last season, but his style of play will have teams curious to see how he measures during the predraft process.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, no one questions the physical tools of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish's DeShone Kizer. At nearly 6'5" and 230 pounds with a big-time arm and tremendous athleticism, Kizer is everything a team hopes to find in a top pick and potential franchise quarterback. Well, almost everything.
Consistency eludes this raw prospect.
After a Balrog-sized start to the season, Kizer continues to fade. But his performance against the Texas Longhorns provides hope that NFL coaches can cultivate his talent to help the Toledo, Ohio, native realize his enormous potential.
In Notre Dame's season opener against the Longhorns, Kizer threw for five touchdowns and added another on the ground without a single turnover. Since that point, the junior has thrown an interception in six straight games and completed less than 60 percent of his passes four times—albeit one of those performances occurred in a monsoon against the North Carolina State Wolfpack.
Poor fundamentals plague this prospect.
The reason why is due to the fact Kizer isn't a lifer at the quarterback position. He hasn't been groomed to lead a team since he was 10-12 years old like many young men who go to every quarterback camp, seven-on-seven session and/or receive extra instruction from supposed gurus. Instead, the Central Catholic product played multiple sports and excelled in each.
This type of upbringing can be beneficial, but it's obvious he's never been fully committed to playing quarterback because his mechanics can be an utter mess. His footwork isn't married to his upper body. His accuracy and ball placement are erratic at best. And his natural feel for the position isn't always evident.
Yet he still provides glimpses of how good he can be. That's where the argument starts. Does his potential—which is sky high—outweigh the years of patience and development that may be required for Kizer to blossom into the quarterback everyone sees in limited stretches?
"He has all of the traits that you look for at the position: size, athleticism, IQ and arm talent," an anonymous AFC personnel executive told NFL.com's Bucky Brooks. "But you have to see if he is ready for the jump. Is he ready to be the guy?"
When so many jobs are on the line, a dedicated front office and coaching staff will be required to spend a top pick on Kizer if he chooses to enter the draft.
The North Carolina Tar Heels' Mitch Trubisky is another underclassman with a big decision ahead of him. If one were to pinpoint the one prospect who has risen the most this season, the Mentor, Ohio, native would be the first mentioned.
Trubisky is in his first year as a starter, and the redshirt junior continues to carve up opponents. Aside from the Oct. 8 contest against the Virginia Tech Hokies—which was played in a downpour courtesy of Hurricane Matthew—the North Carolina quarterback has completed 75.4 percent of his passes at 331.4 yards per game for 18 touchdowns and no interceptions.
He excels in the Tar Heels' play-action passing attack. According to Pro Football Focus' Jeff Dooley, Trubisky holds a "near-perfect QB rating of 146.8" during play-action dropbacks.
Like the previously mentioned prospects, Trubisky is effective as both a passer and a runner. What separates him is his ability to spin the ball and throw with both accuracy and velocity.
As seen in the clip provided by NDT Scouting's Kyle Crabbs, the underclassman keeps his eyes down the middle of the field, knows the coverage awaits and whips a decisive pass down the sideline in the Cover 2 bubble between the cornerback and safety:
Experience can be a tricky thing in Trubisky's case. He often looks decisive in what he's asked to do, but he's asked to do little in head coach Larry Fedora's spread scheme. Much like Watson, Trubisky is being asked to make basic reads and get the ball out quickly to allow the team's playmakers to create after the catch.
Generally speaking, a feeling often exists of wanting to see him do more every time the Tar Heels take the field. Needless to say, none of these top prospects are asked to do the things required within an NFL scheme on a consistent basis.
Trubisky also carries the added slight of limited starting experience. However, he's on pace to surpass Carson Wentz's career pass attempts before the season is complete. The Philadelphia Eagles still selected Wentz with the second overall pick.
Three prospects with as many questions about their game as positives, and these are the best the 2017 NFL draft might have to offer (if they even declare).
Yet there are more than a handful of teams in search of improved quarterback play. The Chicago Bears, Cleveland Browns, New York Jets and San Francisco 49ers will be the most desperate to upgrade the position.
What could the Patriots get in return for Garoppolo if they dangle him at the trade deadline or even wait until the offseason?
"You get a first and a second in a heartbeat, but you ask for two firsts," an anonymous NFL executive told ESPN.com's Mike Sando. "That is where the divide is. And the middle ground might be a first and two seconds. San Francisco got two seconds for Alex Smith, but he had already failed."
So much uncertainty surrounds the position that it's a risk to make a play for the Patriots backup or wait for a signal-caller in next year's draft. But Garoppolo remains the safer bet.
"We are so quick to make up our minds when we don't really know. At least you know Garoppolo can do it," the exec continued. "You don't know if he can play, but he is performing."
All of this is based on the assumption the Patriots are even willing to trade the 24-year-old gunslinger. If New England is, a first-round pick plus another selection is not excessive considering the alternatives.
To paraphrase the great J.R.R. Tolkien, "It's a dangerous business, Garoppolo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to."
Brent Sobleski covers the NFL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @brentsobleski.
Read more NFL news on BleacherReport.com
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