49ers a little clearer at QB
Garoppolo likely still starter, but No. 3 pick is key
Unlike the local media, which hadn’t heard from them for nearly three months, Mandy Shanahan was not eager to listen to her husband, Kyle, and 49ers general manager John Lynch talk about quarterbacks Monday.
It’s the topic from which she hasn’t been able to escape in 2021. Not even when she was with the 49ers’ head coach and their three children in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Different country, but the same tired topic: QBs.
“My wife, when she listens to my phone calls with John, when we’re trying to be on vacation, she thinks we’re having the same conversation eight times a
day,” Shanahan said. “And we kind of are, because we’re just circling through all this stuff. And the first time I woke up with a little bit more clarity is when we made this trade.”
Three days after making that trade, which they hope will provide the franchise of Joe Montana and Steve Young with its next great quarterback, Shanahan and Lynch spent much of their 40minute news conference discussing what preceded their blockbuster deal with Miami.
They traded two future firstround picks and a thirdrounder to move up nine spots in the draft, to No. 3, from which they’ll have a chance to grab one of three prized quarterback prospects. But before they settled their sights on Ohio State’s Justin Fields, North Dakota State’s Trey Lance and Alabama’s Mac Jones, Shanahan indicated they looked into QBs such as Detroit’s Matthew Stafford, who was traded to the Rams, and Houston’s Deshaun Watson, who has requested a trade but now is facing 19 civil lawsuits alleging sexual assault and harassment.
It’s possible those allegations closed the door on the 49ers pursuing Watson. Whatever the case, they already had determined at some point this offseason that Jimmy Garoppolo was no longer their man, at least not for the long term. Shanahan pointed to the biggest knock on Garoppolo: He has missed 23 of his past 48 games with injuries and the 49ers went 617 when he was sidelined.
“It’s very hard to succeed when your starting quarterback doesn’t stay healthy, or you don’t have one of those true starting quarterbacks,” Shanahan said. “We’ve gotten that with Jimmy. He’s played at a very high level when he’s played. It’s been tough the two years he’s missed — it’s been hard to compete the same way. So we knew we had to look into that this year.”
The fact that Garoppolo has played well when available — the 49ers are 228 when he has started — helped lead them to their final plan. Although Shanahan and Lynch didn’t rule out being blown away by a trade offer, the 49ers plan to start the season with Garoppolo on the roster, likely as the starter. If the rookie dazzles in training camp? If he’s clearly ready to take the job before the midseason trade deadline? It sounds as if the 49ers will entertain offers.
“If someone wanted (to give) something for (Garoppolo) and it could make our team better in a lot of other ways, you listen to that,” Shanahan said. “But it also depends on how good you feel about that rookie. And we’re not there yet right now. Odds are, we probably won’t be.”
The 49ers knew they probably couldn’t land one of the draft’s top five QBs if they stayed at No. 12. Shanahan thought they would be “left at the altar.” So they married themselves to the idea of moving quickly to make a trade. Lynch said exploratory discussions with teams began in early March. The 49ers were wary that other QBneedy teams, a group that includes the Panthers (No. 8 pick), Broncos ( 9) and Patriots (15), could trade up into primeQB positions.
That explain why the 49ers made the deal Friday, more than a month before the draft.
“We also, I think, paid somewhat of a premium for doing it early,” Lynch said. “Why was that important to us? Because, well, one thing I always remember Bill Walsh used to talk about a lot when I was at Stanford was: ‘You have got to beat your opponent to the punch.’ We felt like it was a matter of time before the first domino fell and we wanted to be a part of that.”
Shanahan offered another reason for striking early.
Because of the pandemic, teams can’t conduct private workouts with college prospects, eat dinner with them or host them for visits at their facility. They can have five Zoom meetings with prospects that can’t last more than an hour.
Before the trade, Shanahan didn’t attend Lance’s pro day or Jones’ first pro day because he didn’t want to alert teams that the 49ers were targeting a QB at No. 12. At No. 3, they can thoroughly investigate the QBs during a predraft season in which the pandemic has made evaluating harder.
“You’ve got to find out a lot more about these guys, but how do you do that without tipping your hand off to everyone?” Shanahan said. “That was also one of the frustrating things to be sitting there (at No. 12) like we don’t want to try to go see someone or be Zooming all the time and now everyone knows how hard we’re trying to (draft a QB). You get to 3, you don’t have to mess with that stuff.
“And I think that gives us a better chance now to do our due diligence because we don’t have to really play any games in that way.”
Shanahan and Lynch will watch Jones at Alabama’s second pro day Tuesday. And they will attend Fields’ yettobe scheduled second session, a scenario which could unfold with Lance.
Unfortunately for Mandy Shanahan, her husband, if he was being candid Monday, still doesn’t know which QB he plans to pick at No. 3.
And that means those conversations with Lynch aren’t over.
“It’s still not done,” Shanahan said, “but now it’s much more clear. There’s not as many dots to connect.”