Jimmy Garoppolo, somewhat surprisingly, remains a member of the San Francisco 49ers.
Perhaps that’s more of a referendum on Trey Lance than Garoppolo.
Last season saw Garoppolo get the lion’s share of snaps, leading the Niners’ postseason run despite San Francisco drafting Lance third overall in the draft months earlier. Now with a year of experience as a pro, Lance presumably could be ready to take over as 49ers’ franchise quarterback.
But that’s no guarantee, and ProFootballTalk’s Mike Florio indicated Wednesday on the “Rich Eisen Show” that the messaging he’s getting doesn’t point to a ton of confidence in Lance.
"I’ve consistently heard concern that they’re not convinced Lance is ready," Florio said. "And how do you know he’s ready until he’s your guy week in and week out? They haven’t seen enough from him to make them think he’s ready. They didn’t see enough from him last year to be confident about thrusting him into the fray when they clearly would have done it if he had shown he was the best option.
"From Garoppolo’s perspective, the worst-case scenario is they show up to camp, they compete, Lance emerges as the starter. Lance steps up, Lance is ready to go and then they go to Jimmy Garoppolo after the preseason and say ‘Hey Jimmy, Lance is No. 1, you’re No. 2. We can’t pay No. 2 $25 million, so here’s what we’re going to do. We’re gonna pay you $10 million to be the backup, and maybe we’ll put some incentives in there, playing time or whatever, so you can earn some of it back if you end up playing more or if he gets injured. But you’re the backup, you’ve got to accept this deal and if not you’re going to get cut.’ He’s got no guarantees until he’s on the roster for Week 1.
Of course, the other factor in this worth mentioning is that Garoppolo is recovering from offseason shoulder surgery, so there’s likely some trepidation from teams to trade for someone in the throes of injury rehab.
Either way, it’s an uncomfortable situation for Garoppolo, whose contract structure makes him easy to cut. He has proven to be a starting-caliber quarterback in the NFL, but at this point his best opportunity to be under center somewhere when the season kicks off might just be in San Francisco.
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