At this point, it’s obvious the 49ers are going to get a deal done for Jimmy Garoppolo this offseason that cements the 26-year-old as the team’s starting quarterback for the 2018 season. Garoppolo is set to be a free-agent, and the question isn’t if the 49ers will sign him or not, but for how long.
For weeks many insiders, including Ian Rapoport of NFL Network, have speculated that the 49ers would sign Garoppolo to the franchise tag, a one-year deal that would pay him around $25 million next season, as opposed to negotiating a long-term contract. The 49ers are set to have over $100 million in cap space entering this offseason, so paying Garoppolo a lucrative one-year deal wouldn’t affect their flexibility at all to sign a few big name free agents, and would also give San Francisco a much bigger sample size to go off of when they negotiate a long-term deal during the 2019 offseason.
But Garoppolo has looked everything like a franchise quarterback during his first two starts with the 49ers, and getting a long-term deal done now would ensure that Garoppolo wouldn’t be able to go elsewhere two seasons from now.
Rapoport joined Murph & Mac Monday morning, and said that the 49ers would likely be open to doing a long-term deal now if they could get Jimmy G to agree to the terms.
“My understanding has been they want to do the long-term,” Rapoport said. “It definitely depends on if you can work it out financially. You know we’ve seen some teams in the past want to do long-term deals and then just be not quite able to work it out and a player ends up playing on the tag.”
Rapoport acknowledged that Garoppolo’s impressive play in his first two starts has alleviated any concerns about locking him up long-term.
“To me this has always been long-term. Like let’s say he had gone out and really struggled these couple starts —
completion percentage around 50 percent, more interceptions than touchdowns — I could’ve easily said ‘alright it’s probably because he’s playing with not a great cast of players, if the 49ers are unsure at all they could just tag him and then kind’ve move forward like that.’
“Now that there are really no concerns at all, and I figure he is getting the tag, and so any deal negotiated would be based off that. So if you know that, then you could do the deal in advance of the tag if both sides want to work together and I would imagine they do.”
Listen to the full interview below. To hear Rapoport’s comments on Garoppolo’s contract, skip to 0:38.