Heading into the 2017 regular season, it would’ve been a wild take to say the 49ers had a better five year outlook than the Oakland Raiders. The Raiders were coming off a 12-4 season, and had what looked to be young, franchise players on both sides of the ball. San Francisco, on the other hand, was trotting out their third head coach in as many years, and didn’t have an NFL caliber starting quarterback on their roster.
A lot has changed in four months. The 49ers now have their franchise quarterback in Jimmy Garoppolo, and a shaky season from Derek Carr has Raiders fans scratching their heads. The 49ers also look like they finally have a head coach with some staying power, while the Raiders fired Jack Del Rio last week, and hired a coach in Jon Gruden who has been off the sidelines for a decade.
Peter King of Sports Illustrated joined Tolbert & Lund on Wednesday, and was asked if he had to buy stock in either the 49ers or Raiders for the next five years, who he would choose.
“49ers. I basically feel in Jimmy we trust,” King said. “That’s basically my ethos right now. And I really like Derek Carr, but Derek Carr’s performance this year concerns me. I think he’s going to be significantly better with Gruden, but the 49ers have so much cap room. The 49ers have I think some considerable advantages right now with the security of the general manager, and the understanding that they’re on the road to making some very good personnel decisions.”
Under Garoppolo, the 49ers finished the season on a 5-0 run, and enter the offseason with over $100 million in cap room and a top 10 pick in the NFL Draft. The Raiders, meanwhile, finished the season 0-4, and enter the offseason with around $23 million in cap room. Oakland does, however, have the same core of players that won 12 games in 2016.
“I think both teams are in good shape,” King said. “I think next year both teams will be over .500, but I think we might be seeing the dawn of the next great quarterback in Jimmy Garoppolo. I don’t want to get too overwhelmed with the guy, but who puts up a million points on the Jacksonville Jaguars? You might argue that Jacksonville probably in the last two weeks of the season knew they were going to make the playoffs, so what’s the big deal, maybe they weren’t playing with a sense of urgency. But I saw what I saw. I saw the 49ers tear apart the Jacksonville Jaguars, and that’s something that sticks in my mind. Of all the things that Garoppolo did in the last month or so, that single game, not that he was the absolute single force, but he played really, really well. So I’ll take Garoppolo and the Niners.”
Listen to the full interview below. To hear King on the 49ers, skip to 18:50