QB Garropolo will start Sunday
The 49ers aren’t completely convinced quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo is marriage material, but they are ready to make a serious one-year commitment.
That, in effect, was what head coach Kyle Shanahan said Monday when discussing the 49ers’ offseason plan with Garoppolo, who is in the final year of his contract. Shanahan indicated the 49ers are likely to apply a one-year franchise tag to Garoppolo, 26. On Tuesday, they announced he will start Sunday when they visit Chicago, about 30 miles from his hometown of Arlington Heights, Ill.
The franchise tag would pay Garoppolo about $25 million in 2018 and give the 49ers a full season to evaluate the player they hope is their franchise QB.
Garoppolo’s inexperience makes it hard to gauge his worth. The 49ers aren’t ready to invest market value for a quarterback with two career starts and 96 pass attempts. And Garoppolo, who is earning a $820,077 base salary this
season, might welcome an exorbitant 2018 pay raise with the chance to prove he’s a $100-plus million man on the field.
Shanahan termed the franchise tag “logical.”
“When you’re making a long-term decision on someone for your organization, to pay him the amount of money that you do long-term for quarterbacks, that’s a big deal,” Shanahan said. “Someone who hasn’t played in a lot of football games who is coming here in a situation where he hasn’t had the fair opportunity to prepare the right way. On both sides, I think it would be very hard for Jimmy to go in there and show, over whatever time span that is, that he could do that.”
Garoppolo will make his first start Sunday, but Shanahan has said he doesn’t expect to see genuine Jimmy until 2018. Shanahan believes Garoppolo won’t be at his best until next season because he’s still digesting a complex playbook he has been studying for only about a month.
Without the tag, the 49ers would have needed to quickly determine whether Garoppolo merited a massive long-term contract. Shanahan said the tag allowed the 49ers to trade a second-round pick to the Patriots on Oct. 30 without rushing the process, or worrying he could be a two-month rental.
“I think knowing how the franchise tag works is what made it kind of a no-brainer to make that trade,” Shanahan said. “Like, ‘Hey, you have this opportunity to get such a good player. What’s the negative?’ Well, you don’t want to lose him in six weeks or eight weeks. If you have the franchise tag, then you don’t have to ever worry about losing him. You can get there, you can do things the right way, really find out what the guy is. I think we understand that. I think Jimmy understands that also.”
Of course, it’s possible Garoppolo’s three-snap, onetouchdown-pass debut in a 24-13 loss to the Seahawks on Sunday is a harbinger of 2017 highlights to come.
What if, surrounded by a middling supporting cast, he dazzles down the stretch and leaves no doubt that he’s the answer at the NFL’s most important position? Shanahan hopes that happens, but is prepared to wait.
“If (a contract extension) happens over a five-game span, a three-game span, then great, let’s do it,” Shanahan said. “If it doesn’t, no big deal. We can franchise you. Let’s go to work. Our goals will be to get you that next year. If that does happen for you, that means it happens for us. I think we’ll all be happy about that.”