Jimmy Garoppolo is still a 49er, but it wasn’t for a lack of interest from other clubs.
Garoppolo and general manager John Lynch on Thursday in separate press conferences indicated there were discussions with other clubs about acquiring the 30-year-old signal caller.
The 49ers were always clear that their intention was to trade Garoppolo, but there was never confirmation about any deals they’d come close to making prior to Garoppolo’s shoulder surgery. Lynch on Thursday said they were close to a trade with multiple clubs.
“Yeah, that’s always an interesting question, because it’s not like someone emails you here’s our offer,” Lynch said. “It’s discussions, and what I can tell you is, with great confidence, combine time there were really serious talks with probably two, three teams that I felt like, you’d have to ask them, like this was going to happen. And that’s when that news broke (about Garoppolo’s surgery), and then things went where they went.”
Surgery for Garoppolo didn’t permanently derail the trade market necessarily. The 49ers still allowed teams to negotiate with Garoppolo’s representation about cutting down his $24.2 million salary. The QB said no trade offers came in specifically, but there were definitely inquiries from clubs.
“Not to that degree,” Garoppolo said about trade offers. “A little different verbiage, I guess you could say, but there was a lot of discussions with other teams.”
Ultimately Garoppolo determined the best course of action for him and his career was to stay in San Francisco on a restructured deal.
“Yeah, you always have to think about that,” Garoppolo said. “It’s as much as you’re in it for the wins and everything like that, you have to look into the future a little bit, contract situations and all that. And I think everybody does that to a certain degree and you have to be smart in that sense of it, but at the end of the day, I’m a 49er right now and I’m happy about that.”
Garoppolo will have a chance to hit the free agent market next season with his value increased significantly depending on how this season plays out.
For San Francisco the trade talks and Garoppolo’s discussions with other clubs provide some backing to the notion that this plan came together in the few days before Garoppolo signed the deal. That’s how it was presented by Lynch and head coach Kyle Shanahan in their conference call with media Tuesday. Some speculated they actually held onto Garoppolo in case they didn’t like what they saw from Lance in training camp.
Perhaps that’s still the case and the 49ers only pulled the trigger on the Garoppolo move because they wanted to hedge their bet on their change under center.
Either way they weren’t able to trade Garoppolo this offseason when it was their top priority after their season ended. It wasn’t for a lack of offers though, and now they’ve brought him back to set up one of the strangest QB situations of all-time.
