The San Francisco 49ers have a mess to clean up at quarterback.
Mike Florio thinks that mess has been there for half a decade.
The 49ers’ plan to trade Jimmy Garoppolo ahead of the regular season is not going according to plan. His offseason shoulder surgery and resulting rehab tanked any market he had around free agency and the draft, and teams now have their quarterback situations set. Barring an injury, no team has incentive to trade for him knowing the Niners probably are going to cut him before his contract becomes guaranteed for the season.
You could look at it as the cost of turning the offense over to Trey Lance, who they used the No. 3 pick on in the 2021 draft. Appearing on “The Morning Roast”, ProFootballTalk NFL insider Mike Florio went back to 2017, when San Francisco made a midseason trade for Garoppolo, as the start of those problems.
“They haven’t handled the quarterback situation well for five years," Florio said. "They didn’t evaluate Patrick Mahomes or Deshaun Watson because Kyle Shanahan expected to sign Kirk Cousins the following year in free agency. So he didn’t even bother, they were in prime position to take either guy, didn’t even bother to evaluate. ...
“And then they had the bright idea to get Jimmy Garoppolo for a second-round pick, and Kyle Shanahan got talked into doing that by someone instead of waiting until the end of the season and getting Kirk Cousins. And then when 2020 came around and Tom Brady wanted to play for the 49ers, that was his first choice, and they evaluated him – and they admitted that – they evaluated him and decided to keep Jimmy Garoppolo. …
“I just think that for as good as they’ve been, I mean they would’ve won two or three Super Bowls by now if they had the quarterback position under control. And I think this is the latest effort for them to clean up this mess they’ve made the past five years in how they’ve handled the quarterback situation.”
Ultimately, they did get some good years out of Garoppolo. There’s no doubt though that things could have gone much better had they not made a litany of panic moves that ultimately led them back to trotting out Garoppolo every year.
And, unless Shanahan's comments Tuesday were a leverage play, maybe we haven't seen the last of Garoppolo in San Francisco after all.
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