The Tennessee Titans’ trade of DT Jeffery Simmons to the Chicago Bears has turned into a referendum on GM Mike Borgonzi.

The charge is that he did an inside “buddy deal” with longtime friend and Bears GM Ryan Poles behind closed doors, ignored calls from the New York Giants and others, and left value on the table. Over the past four days, I’ve talked to a handful of people around the league about this.

The framing of this story didn’t sit right with me at all.

The growing narrative in the press—driven in large part by the Giants—that they were amongst some other teams ready to beat Chicago’s offer and Tennessee wouldn’t pick up the phone, is convenient hindsight BS.

Harbaugh’s call and the ‘inside job’ theory

Start with the call that set this whole thing off. Giants coach John Harbaugh went over Borgonzi’s head and left a message for Titans controlling owner Amy Adams Strunk. Harbaugh owned it at his press conference this week:

“I did, I did. I left a message. Why? Because you’re turning over every stone. You know, we’re going to try everything. I mean, I’ll put it out there, man. We’re open for any call. Anybody wants to call us or call anybody, call.”

I wrote about why others in the league hated that particular maneuver by the veteran coach, and why I think that makes it a foolish move on his part. Harbaugh spoke on the reaction that I and others were a part of:

“It was kind of fun to see the outpouring of interest in that. I enjoyed it. We’re not part of any secret society oath that says you can only talk to somebody. We’re not in that. We didn’t get memoed on that. We’re not in that agreement. So like I said, anybody can call us. We won’t be adhering to that particular agreement.”

I’m not incensed that he broke some unwritten rule. The NFL is a 365-day war game, and the espionage, alliances, and half-truths of the offseason and trade deadline are part of it. All’s fair in love and war. But actions have consequences, and I do think Harbaugh did himself a disservice. He added to the reputation his building already has with the rest of the league’s front offices, which is frankly a big part of why I believe Borgonzi froze the Giants out of a trade they were never going to win in a straight race anyways.

Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio laid out the opposing view on PFT Live this week:

“…what happened last week with Jeffery Simmons and Ryan Poles and Mike Borgonzi, two longtime friends, it felt like an inside job. It felt like Matthew Stafford to the Rams, that we’re going to huddle together and we’re going to do this deal, and nobody else is going to know… I’m going to help you you’re going to help me, and forget everybody else.”

“What happened along the way was that the Giants and other teams had been calling the Titans about Jeffrey Simmons… And apparently Borgonzi is not very responsive. Borgonzi wasn’t returning any phone calls… So John Harbaugh decides, hey… All right, if he’s not going to take these calls, I’ll go over his head. Now, I fully believe that Joe Shoen knew he was going to do it because that’s one question. Did Harbaugh just go rogue? Well, I mean, Harbaugh is kind of running the show now.”

“I mean, this is my belief. I’m going to make sure the owner knows what’s going on here. They could be getting something for this guy as their season’s going down the toilet. So, yeah, it was reported that he called, and people are pissed because there’s a code of conduct among the football decision makers that only they call each other and other people don’t get involved and they don’t jump over their heads or whatever. But I mean, you’re trying to make a deal. You’re trying to make your team better. And if the GM is not answering your phone call and you’re trying to make the team better, then yeah, you do whatever you have to do to try to address this thing you’re trying to address.”

For what it’s worth, I am confident Giants GM Joe Schoen did not know about the Harbaugh call. But that’s beside the point. Florio frames it this way: John wanted to make sure the owner knew that the Titans could be getting more in a trade for Simmons than they got. The message did reach Strunk, and she talked it over with her football people. Things still played out exactly as they did, and New York never got looped into any bidding. Doesn’t that suggest she wasn’t buying it just like Borgonzi wasn’t?

Why the Titans couldn’t shop Simmons openly

Here’s the human element that never shows up on paper. For eight years, Simmons and the Titans had an understanding. He wasn’t going to force his way out and wreck the team’s leverage, and the Titans weren’t going to dangle him as a chess piece. That’s why Tennessee kept saying it took calls on Simmons without engaging. Simmons stuck to that story, as he earnestly understood it, until the day before he was traded.

Let me be clear about this fact: the second word gets out that the Titans are actively shopping him, Borgonzi loses all of his leverage in potentially moving a nuclear-grade, face of the franchise player. We aren’t talking about the circumstances that surround 99% of trades here. It’s dishonest to conflate this situation with most others.

Another fact, at least this is factually a common perception: That Giants’ building is hard to trust with delicate situations. New York is a very leaky part of the country in the NFL world. That makes New York a dubious partner sometimes. My belief is the Giants wanted a door opened to a bidding war so the news could get out. It’s the oldest trick in the book, turning a shopped trade over to the court of public opinion to sow internal discord between player and team. It’s all a leverage game. And it’s exactly why trust between Poles and Borgonzi mattered so much by Borgonzi’s own, repeated retelling of things.

That doesn’t mean Borgonzi only talked to Chicago, either. The sources driving this national story seem to be conflating the Giants being frozen out with the rest of the league being frozen out, which is awfully convenient to the Giants’ narrative. The Titans fielded calls on Simmons in the days and weeks leading up to the deal. I have no doubt that Borgonzi had a grasp on the market as it pertains to teams that could actually have the means, motive, and need to be a partner for Simmons. Which brings us to perhaps the most important point.

The Giants weren’t beating Chicago’s offer

Folks, I am begging us to apply some logic here. New York doesn’t have a fourth- or fifth-round pick this year. Harbaugh has raised the floor of that roster, and the Giants deserve credit for leading their division. But they’ve done it against an easier schedule and on their third quarterback, JJ McCarthy. They aren’t in the tier of the Bears, 49ers, Rams, Bills, Jaguars, etc. They may be trying to act like top-shelf contenders, but everybody with sober perspective on this team knows that is wishful thinking at best right now. Pushing chips in on a defensive tackle as a finishing piece (after moving Dexter Lawrence in a big trade 10 seconds ago) makes no sense.

So name the team other than Chicago or supposedly New York that had the means, the motive, and the need to reasonably beat this offer. You can’t find one. The Giants talking big after the ink has dried sounds like every fantasy football manager in history: “I’d have offered you more!” Nobody believes you.

The bottom line is that the perfect version of this deal, one where Borgonzi shops Simmons to 31 teams and sells to the highest bidder, only exists on paper. When you consider the real-life factors at play in this story, it quickly becomes clear just how unrealistic that is. Tennessee got the best logical return from the most logical partner, and it protected both its leverage and its relationship with Simmons. Calling this a selfish “buddy deal” is an unfair negative read on a team that has provided plenty of recent reasons for ridicule. This isn’t one of them.