Since the beginnging of last offseason, it has been a foregone conclusion that Jimmy Garoppolo’s time with the 49ers would be coming to an end.
However, you can never truly say never.
49ers general manager John Lynch joined Matt Maiocco on the latest episode of 49ers Talk from the NFL scouting combine where he opened up and revealed the possibility of Garoppolo staying with San Francisco and possibly competing with Trey Lance once again next season.
“The combine is set up just perfectly because we’re all here together, so those meetings take place and like I said, we will listen,” Lynch said. “We know that we’ve got a really good quarterback in Jimmy so if we have the two of them and let them go compete, then we’re happy to do that as well. And we’re capable of doing that with our cap.”
Despite his comments, Jimmy G is likely to find his way off the team at some point. Moving Garoppolo will free up around $25 million in salary cap space, allowing the team to re-sign current free agents and work on extensions with young stars such as Deebo Samuel and Nick Bosa.
“There’s certainly tradeoffs, but we budgeted for a lot of different things with Plan A, Plan B, Plan C and one of those scenarios and a couple of those scenarios has included Jimmy,” Lynch explained. “Yes, we can do it. It will curtail what we are able to do, the aggressiveness in free agency. The bottom line is, whatever that combination is, we want to be a better football team and give ourselves a better opportunity to be a better football team going into next year.”
Garoppolo will undergo shoulder surgery this offseason and reportedly will not throw for 16 weeks afterward.
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The eighth-year quarterback, who in 2021 led the 49ers to a 9-6 record as a starter, threw for 3,810 yards and 20 touchdowns to 12 interceptions.
In the postseason, Jimmy G completed 16 of 25 passes for 172 yards and an interception in the victory over Dallas. The following week, he completed 11 of 19 passes for 131 yards and another interception in a narrow 13-10 victory at Green Bay.
He had his best outing of the postseason in the NFC championship game, completing 16 of 30 passes for 232 yards and two touchdowns to one interception in a 20-17 loss to the eventual Super Bowl-champion Rams.
