» 49ERS GM AGAIN VOICES SUPPORT FOR QB

INDIANAPOLIS — Three weeks after coming agonizingly close to a Super Bowl victory, Jimmy Garoppolo continues to win the support of 49ers brass.

“I know Jimmy feels the same way we all do. We left a little out there and that’s a shame,” general manager John Lynch said Tuesday at the NFL scouting combine. “That’s something we’re going to have to deal with, really, for the rest of our lives, but nobody knows that more than him.

“I’m incredibly proud, as is our entire organization for the way he’s handled himself and the way he’s played and how he’s led our team.”

Garoppolo rebounded from 2018 knee reconstruction to start every game last season, throw for the fourth-most yards in franchise history and start every game in a season for the first time in his career.

His fourth-quarter struggles in the Super Bowl included a thirddown overthrow toward Emmanuel Sanders for a potential winning touchdown with 1 { minutes to go. It was just one aspect of the 49ers’ horrific collapse as they blew a 20-10 lead and fell 3120 to the Kansas City Chiefs.

“We all have to take a hard look at the fourth quarter,” Lynch said. “We built this team to be finishers and we fell short of that. We’ve all got to live with that. You know the nature of that position, it’s probably going to get examined a little bit more, but I think we all have to own that.”

The 49ers signed Garoppolo to a five-year contract two years ago, and Lynch indicated they could rework his deal if they need salary cap room.

“The most exciting thing about him is the room for growth. He’s not come close to hitting his ceiling,” Lynch added. “The room for growth, the more experience he gets in this system, the more experience he gets playing in general, we think the arrow’s up, and that’s a good thing.”

Coach Kyle Shanahan defended Garoppolo.

“Jimmy deserves a ton of credit for what he did this year,” Shanahan said. “I think people talk a little bit about how he was coming off an ACL, but I also think that people don’t realize that was his first year playing quarterback in this league . ... To do that, with the pressure of, to me, everyone thinking you’ve already arrived and coming off an ACL, I thought there was much pressure on him at the beginning of the year as anyone I’ve been around.

“He just took it, handled it all year and got better throughout the year. I was very impressed with him.”

As for the unlikely prospect of replacing Garoppolo with his former New England Patriots teammate Tom Brady, Shanahan simply referred to NFL tampering protocol and stated that he is not allowed to talk about any potential free agents until next month.