The 49ers’ public confidence in defender Jimmy Garoppolo makes it more difficult to determine how they can behave in an unusually active defensive market. While Deshaun Watson’s commercial demand has put a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and other veteran defenders of teams wanting to turn the page on that position, San Francisco’s downtown moves this year could be less dramatic than transport Garoppolo in favor of a new starter.
Head coach Kyle Shanahan, in his end-of-season press conference, told reporters that he believes Garoppolo is part of the team’s core.
“Yes, I want Jimmy back in our center. It’s good that he’s not a free agent, “Shanahan said.
That was in line with what he said after the team won Week 16 over the Cardinals when asked about Garoppolo’s future, saying he expected Garoppolo to be the starter, but the team will not move on to an obvious upgrade.
“Now, you look at every boulevard and see if there’s anything out there that can improve you much, it’s the same answer for every position,” Shanahan said in late December. “But look at Jimmy, look at what he did, look at where he is with us financially and we better have a very good answer if you find something better than that, because Jimmy has shown in a year that he is a guy who can take us to the Super Bowl and I also think that Jimmy will be much better the more he plays ”.
It seems that the 49ers are satisfied with Garoppolo, keep their draft options and improve the list that will lose a number of players in a year in which the salary limit could become an obstacle in keeping key free agents. A Watson transaction could throw a key into these plans, but suppose for a moment that it is not on the table.
Just because Garoppolo could return as a starter in 2021 does not mean that there are no more defensive moves. San Francisco fought last season, when backups Nick Mullens and CJ Beathard played, and both are ready to reach the free agent market in the off-season. Mullens is restricted, while Beathard is due for unrestricted free agency.
Shanahan was more open to the possibility of making changes to the position of reserve defender for the first time since 2017.
“So you have to look at everything when you’re trying to complete a quarterback list,” Shanahan said. “We have a starting defender, but to know where these guys will be, he has to be re-signed on the guys we have or see if we can update them through the project or the free agency. To do this, you need to evaluate everything so that you know how to stack them and more. So we’re definitely going to look at a lot more this year than we did last year. ”
Here things become especially interesting for 49ers. The reserve defender is an unusually important place in their list, given the history of Garoppolo’s injuries. He missed 23 of the last 48 matches of the team’s regular season. Partly because of those injuries, he has yet to establish a long-term response from the team under the center.
The risk of being without the starting defender in the middle of a playoff window is too great for the 49ers to simply complete the list of defenders with cheap backup options. In addition, if Garoppolo doesn’t answer some of the lingering questions about his ability to properly lead the 49ers offense, he needs to start exploring options for life after Garoppolo.
Finding solutions to these two larger background problems is more pressing for San Francisco than moving from Garoppolo.
They have the option no. 12 and enough capital to be able to move the board for a player in this year’s draft class, which could solve the problem of reserve QB and long-term QB at once.
Or they could recruit a defender and go after a free agent like Jacoby Brissett or Ryan Fitzpatrick, in an attempt to immediately update the QB2 spot. Neither Fitzpatrick, nor Brissett, nor any accessible free agent defender will take the 49ers to a Super Bowl, but they would be able to win games if Garoppolo will not be available for a long time.
The exact moves and choices can be debated, but the general idea is that the 49ers’ quarterback will probably look very different last season, even if they don’t get past Garoppolo. In fact, supporting the depth chart behind Garoppolo is probably a higher priority than organizing a transaction for a new starter.
Given how little the 49ers were willing to put on the table in trade talks with Matthew Stafford – a report said they didn’t make an official offer once the first-round election was on the table – it’s hard to imagine outside Watson that become strongly involved in other potentially available veteran signal callers.
The anticipated changes will come in the 49ers’ quarterback this season, but that won’t hit Garoppolo’s ticket to the Bay Area.