49ers: Garoppolo QB of the future
There are lots of NFL teams searching for a quarterback to rely on for the next several seasons. The 49ers believe they are now off that list.
San Francisco traded a second-round pick to the Patriots for Jimmy Garoppolo on Monday, and both coach Kyle Shanahan and general manager John Lynch were emphatic the fourthyear quarterback with 94 career NFL passes is going to be their guy moving forward.
“We didn’t bring Jimmy here just to help us right now,” Shanahan told reporters Tuesday. “It’s hard to come across opportunities to get guys you believe have a chance to be your quarterback for a while. I think every team is looking for that, except for about six teams. When those opportunities come around ... you don’t hesitate and you don’t look back.”
“I’m eager to get out there and show what I can do on a Sunday,” Garoppolo said. “This league is tough. It really is. When you get your opportunity, you have to take advantage of it because you don’t know when you’ll get another.”
Garoppolo, 25, was a second-round pick in 2014 from Eastern Illinois. He started two of the four games Tom Brady was suspended for last season before sustaining a shoulder injury. It’s a small sample, but Garoppolo has completed 67 percent of his passes with five touchdowns and no interceptions.
“An unbelievable opportunity came our way in what has been a tough season,” 49ers coach John Lynch said. “Where we are now is not fun. But Kyle and I — and I think everyone in the building — feels positive things. ... Is it going to fix all of our ills? Absolutely not. But we had an opportunity to get better as an organization. We took advantage of that. We think we improved our football team at an important position.”
If Lynch and Shanahan are serious about their longterm plans, that leaves one less potential suitor for Kirk Cousins, who played for the 49ers coach in Washington. It would also mean one team likely to finish with a higher draft pick than the Jets (and Giants) won’t be taking a quarterback in the first round.
“We probably had, in my opinion, the best quarterback situation in the league for the last 2 ½ years, [but] it’s just not sustainable given the way things are set up,” Patriots coach Bill Belichick told reporters.
“It’s definitely not something we wanted to walk away from. I felt like we rode it out as long as we could. Over a period of time, we explored every option possible to try to sustain it. But at this point, felt like we had to make a decision.”