Garoppolo can exhale
right track, really turning around our organization, you don’t expect anything like that to change. He’s our guy.”
General manager John Lynch also termed Garoppolo “our guy” at last month’s combine. But the 49ers reportedly mulled replacing him with Brady, the man widely considered to be the best QB in NFL history, at some point before free agency began last week.
In a story outlining why Brady left the Patriots after 20 seasons with the team, ESPN’s Seth Wickersham said Brady, a San Mateo native, made it known through various channels that the 49ers were his top choice. The 49ers discussed the possibility, “but, in the end, the team was committed to Jimmy Garoppolo.”
It’s not known how involved those discussions were. Presumably, most teams without one of the NFL’s top five or so QBs would at least bat around the idea of adding Brady, 42, who is less than 14 months removed from winning his sixth Super Bowl title.
One obvious issue: What would have been the 49ers’ longterm plan if they replaced Garoppolo, 28, with Brady?
If they signed Brady to a oneyear deal, there was a chance they could have in 2021 signed Cousins, 31, who was about to enter the last year of his contract before he signed his extension.
In 2012, Shanahan, then Washington’s offensive coordinator, played a key role in the team drafting Cousins in the fourth round after it had already used the second overall pick on Robert Griffin Jr. Shanahan planned to sign Cousins in free agency in 2018 before the Patriots offered Garoppolo for a secondround pick during the 2017 season.
Before free agency, with rumors still swirling about Brady, MMQB.com reported there was a belief around the league that Garoppolo was “on the clock because Kirk Cousins is a free agent in 2021.”
Garoppolo’s job won’t be threatened by Brady or Cousins, but his contract means he shouldn’t get too comfortable.
In 2021, the 49ers can trade or release him before April 1 and incur a relatively modest deadcap hit ($2.8 million) for doing so. This offseason, they declined to restructure his contract to create cap space, a move that would have tied them to their QB beyond this season.
Shanahan is exacting with his QBs, and that explains some of the friction he experienced with Griffin and Donovan McNabb in Washington and with Matt Ryan in Atlanta.
In the 2016 offseason, after Ryan’s bumpy first season with Shanahan as his offensive coordinator, the QB and coach reportedly met in Southern California and ironed out some differences over beers. Then, in 2016, Ryan reached another level when he was named the NFL MVP.
Four years later, Shanahan is seeking a similar jump, and his unspoken charge to Garoppolo might be this: Play at a level that would prevent us from considering replacing you.