It appears Jimmy Garoppolo had a plan in place and i worked out to perfection.
According to Matt Barrows and Jeff Howe of The Athletic, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo delayed having offseason shoulder surgery to avoid being traded.
Even though he was widely expected to be traded, Garoppolo surprised many on Monday, agreeing to a restructured contract to remain with the Niners as Trey Lance‘s backup.
“The new deal still allows him to hit the free agency market in 2023, which has been Garoppolo’s focus all along,” Howe and Barrows said. “It’s the reason he had his shoulder repaired in March, which essentially scuttled any chance the team had of trading the quarterback.”
Not having an offseason to learn a new system would make Garoppolo unappealing to any team that may have had interest in acquiring him.
It’s certainly not out of the realm of possibility that Jimmy G could return to the starting QB should should Lance struggle this year.
While appearing on the I Am Athlete podcast, San Francisco head coach Kyle Shanahan sounded like a man who did not expect Garoppolo to be on the roster come Week 1.
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“You gotta make tough decisions in this business. The more you learn about salary cap. The more you learn about how to keep ahold of your players. I thought Jimmy played great during that Super Bowl year. But I also know how good of a team we had.
They were young, and it gets harder and harder to keep these guys. Going forward, we realized how hard it would be to keep Deebo, and sign guys like Fred [Warner], like [George] Kittle. We know we’re going to end up paying [Nick] Bosa a lot of money.
So you look at all that stuff, and getting a guy on a rookie quarterback was a big part of that. And I love that we’re giving a good team to Trey, so he doesn’t have to do that on his own. Just like I didn’t believe Jimmy had to. You try to build a team to where it’s not just about the quarterback.”
Had they released Garoppolo, his clearest path to playing time would have been in Seattle, and San Francisco general manager John Lynch reportedly wasn’t keen on the Seahawks landing him.
