The 49ers ’public confidence in quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo makes it harder to determine how they can behave in an inactive quarterback market. While Deshaun Watson’s commercial request has put a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and other veteran quarterbacks on teams who want to turn the page on that position, San Francisco’s moves this year may be less dramatic than sending Garoppolo in favor of a new entrant.
Head coach Kyle Shanahan, in his end-of-season press conference, told reporters that he believed Garoppolo was part of the team’s core.
“Yes, I want Jimmy to return to our core. Good thing he’s not a free agent, “said Shanahan.
This was in line with what he said after the team’s 16-week victory over the Cardinals when asked about Garoppolo’s future, saying he hoped Garoppolo would be the starter, but that the team would not. an obvious improvement would pass.
“Now, look at all the avenues and see if there’s anything that can improve you a lot, it’s the same answer for every position,” Shanahan said in late December. “But look Jimmy, look what he’s done, look where he’s financially and we better have a really good answer if you find something better than that, because Jimmy proved in a year that he’s a guy who can take us to the Super Bowl and I also think Jimmy will improve a lot when he plays more. “
It seems that the 49ers are content with the content of Garoppolo, maintain their draft selections and improve the list that a number of players must be lost in a year in which the salary cap could become an obstacle to keep key free agents. A Watson trade could throw a key to those plans, but suppose for a moment it’s not on the table.
The fact that Garoppolo may return as a starter in 2021 does not mean there are no quarterback moves. San Francisco struggled last season when Nick Mullens and CJ Beathard played, and both will hit the free agent market in the offseason. Mullens is restricted, while Beathard is due to an unrestricted free agency.
Shanahan was more open to the possibility of making changes to the post of quarterback for the first time since 2017.
“So you have to look at it all when you try to fill a quarterback list,” Shanahan said. “We have an initial quarterback, but to know where these guys will be, we have to re-sign the guys we have or see if we can update them through the project or the free agency. To do that, you have to evaluate “Everything so you can know how to stack them and stuff. So we’ll definitely study a lot more things this year than last year.”
This is where things are especially interesting for the 49ers. The quarterback is an unimportant place on his roster considering Garoppolo’s injury history. He has lost 23 of the team’s last 48 regular season games. Partly due to these injuries, it has not yet established itself as the team’s long-term response under the center.
The risk of running out of their starting quarterback in the middle of a playoff window is too high for the 49ers to just fill the quarterback list with cheap backup options. Also, if Garoppolo doesn’t answer some of the persistent questions about his ability to properly carry out the 49ers ’offense, they should start exploring options for life after Garoppolo.
Finding solutions to these two big quarterback problems is more urgent for San Francisco than moving from Garoppolo.
They have choice number 12 and enough capital to conceive a player in this year’s draft category who could solve both the secondary QB and long-term QB problem.
Or they could recruit a quarterback and go find a free agent like Jacoby Brissett or Ryan Fitzpatrick in an attempt to immediately update the QB2 site. Neither Fitzpatrick nor Brissett, nor any affordable free agent quarterback will take the 49ers to a Super Bowl, but they would be able to win games if Garoppolo were not available for an extended period of time.
Exact moves and selections can be debated, but the general point is that the 49ers quarterbacks ’room will likely look very different last season, even if they don’t go beyond Garoppolo. In fact, strengthening the depth chart behind Garoppolo is probably a higher priority than making a trade for a new incumbent.
Given how little the 49ers were willing to put on the table in Matthew Stafford’s trade talks (a report said they made no official offer once the first-round picks were on the table), it’s hard to imagine outside of Watson having a strong stake in other potentially available veteran signal calls.
The planned changes will hit the 49ers quarterbacks hall this low season, but that won’t cause Garoppolo’s ticket to leave the Bay Area.