Jimmy Garoppolo got his money and then dipped.
Following the revealing report from Michael Silver of the San Francisco Chronicle that Garoppolo wasn’t in contact with members of the 49ers including coaches following signing his $137.5 million contract, NBC Sports analyst and former NFL quarterback Chris Simms added a new layer to the story.
Simms shared a story about how a “long-standing player” from the 49ers told him that the former franchise quarterback was not only hard to reach, but he would never return calls.
“I’m not going to name the player, but I was at an event and the player who is a long-standing player with the 49ers is like, ‘I can’t get the quarterback to call me back. I’ve called him every day for a month,’” Simms told Florio.
Sometimes, it would require a drive to Garoppolo’s house with a knock on the door as he described.
“You hear it from everybody. I’ve heard it from ex-coaches who have moved on. It’s weird,” Simms said. “The organization has reached out to him at times and explained things to him, and they can’t get ahold of him. To the point where they have had to drive to his house and knock on the door and be like, ‘Hello? Are you alive? Are you there?’”
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This released information is not helping his cause to get traded as he remains on the 49ers roster as the new season draws near. The 41-year-old Simms believes that NFL teams already know about Garoppolo’s “ghosting” habits.
“I think there’s more than just the play on the field at hand here,” Simms continued. “I think a lot of the NFL knows these stories a little bit, and I think that’s why we’ve had some teams kind of drag their feet and not sure if they want to go all in on the Jimmy Garoppolo trade.”
Currently, the Cleveland Browns are a situation that has been continuously monitored with Deshaun Watson facing harsher punishment than his six-game suspension following his legal issues.
The New York Jets were another team linked to Garoppolo because of the recent bone bruise and meniscus injury to Zach Wilson.
