Another weekend has gone by, and another two days without a trade of quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo. While John Middlekauff said on his podcast that the 49ers had a second-round pick on the table for Jimmy G., The Athletic’s Tim Kawakami offered this little nugget on Saturday.
Folks, I don’t believe the 49ers have been offered anything solid for Garoppolo. They’ve been told “check with us” before doing anything. Maybe the solid talks started today AFTER the Watson trade happened. So this talk of what they’ve been offered I think was speculation, IMO. https://t.co/yttKnmywPc
— Tim Kawakami (@timkawakami) March 19, 2022
First of all, if Middlekauff is correct and there was an offer of a second-round pick on the table, the 49ers are absolutely insane for not immediately accepting that deal and driving Jimmy Garoppolo to the airport before he could even pack an overnight bag.
If Kawakami is correct and things were left in “check with us” status, that still puts the ball in the 49ers’ court. At that point, it becomes incumbent upon the team’s front office to put pressure on the other teams by creating the impression that Garoppolo was about to be dealt with and a decision needed to be made. Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com reported that John Lynch is telling people the 49ers have an offer of two first round picks (!) on the table. So maybe they’ve tried that, and ultimately no one cared that they were going to miss out on trading for an expensive, injury-prone, 30-year-old quarterback. Considering the fact that we have never gotten a single report about the market for Jimmy Garoppolo picking up, that doesn’t seem likely.
Or maybe the 49ers don’t realize how awkward things will be if they continue to wait for the perfect trade offer when the team reports for training camp. Setting aside the fact that it will be impossible for Lance to take over the team with Garoppolo still in the locker room, there’s also Jimmy’s side of this to consider.
By all accounts, Garoppolo was a professional last season and didn’t make any waves about the situation inside the locker room. Will that goodwill continue when the team told him they would trade him during the offseason and gave him a farewell press conference?
I’m sure many of you will completely ignore everything I’ve said here. But the way I see it, the 49ers either grossly overestimated Garoppolo’s value on the open market, didn’t accept trade offers that were on the table, or are banking the entire return on some hypothetical future injury to a quarterback during training camp or the preseason.
If you’ve got a scenario where the 49ers played this thing perfectly, I’d love to hear it.
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