Now you have picks #17, #23 and the Pats’ first pick in 2021. According to Jimmy Johnson’s draft pick value chart, that’s 950 (#17), 760 (#23) and 350 (next year’s pick) = 2,060. That gets you up to the #3 pick overall, which means any QB except Burrow.
That’s not much of a downside.
There's a tremendous downside. Replacing Dak with someone we'll then spend years trying to coax Dak-level play out of is a huge step backwards.
If we keep Dak and we keep and use our 1st rounder on a player to improve the team, we should get better.
If we give up Dak and 3 1st rounders (our 2020 pick plus the two picks the other team sends us) for a QB unlikely to be as good as him, we get appreciably worse because we go backwards at QB
and we cost ourselves that other 1st rounder we'd have used to make the team better (and affordably so) around Dak.
(Also: maybe I read your post too fast but I'm not sure you made it clear which future pick we're giving up, exactly. Our own 2021 pick, or the Patriots' 2021 pick? Because I think we all know which of those two picks our trading partner will demand. They'll want the pick of an 8-8 team suffering a self-inflicted wound choosing to weaken themselves at QB. As opposed to the pick of a Belichick-coached winning team that will still have a franchise QB. So, to be clear, we're probably giving them a top ten 2021 pick instead of a pick down in the 20's. So the price just got much steeper. Fun! Future picks are valued a round lower than the present ones, so you just had us treat a top 10 pick as if it had the value of a 2nd rounder in a trade. Let's all pause and let the wisdom of that move wash over us for a moment.)
At that point, you're asking the money we save ourselves on Dak's contract to make up for losing a franchise QB
and an additional 1st round caliber player. That's a lot to expect from that money.
Don't forget that a portion of the financial savings is negated by the loss of the extra 1st rounder (pick #17), which should've given us a 1st round caliber player we would then pay rookie wages for years. Every pick you spend on a quality player is financial relief. Giving up our best shot at picking a great, cheap player is us willingly giving back a chunk of the financial relief we would enjoy by sparing ourselves Dak's contract. (And, oh by the way, if we hedge our bet and the rookie gets paired with a free agent veteran QB making high-7 or low-8 figures, that's another huge dent we're making in the relief that weaseling our way out of paying Dak what he costs was supposed to give us. Fun!)
And even after all that, it has to be said: the cosmetic trait about Dak that causes so many of our fans' irrational aversion to him? Depending on which rookie we draft, decent chance that rookie comes with the same fundamental trait that causes the deal-breaking inner discomfort for those people. So, we're back to square one with a QB a massive chunk of our terrible fanbase will never be able to stomach. And who, in all likelihood, Jerry will never truly feel comfortable paying the money it takes to keep if we luck out like we did in 2016 and he turns out to be good.