© Kelley L Cox | 2017 Sep 10
Poor Jimmy Garoppolo. All the guy does is take the 49ers to the Super Bowl in his first full season as a starter, and a week doesn’t go by without speculation that San Francisco is ready to move on.
For most of the offseason, there was buzz that he’d be moved aside for Tom Brady, a 42-year old quarterback who was worse than Garoppolo in nearly every aspect of quarterbacking last season. With Brady in Tampa Bay, the latest wrench comes via NFL analyst Bucky Brooks, who told Mark Willard on Friday that free agent Cam Newton might be a better fit than Jimmy G.
“If I’m Cam Newton, and I can’t go to the L.A. Chargers because they love Tyrod (Taylor), I go to San Francisco,” Brooks began. “And the reason why Cam Newton in San Francisco would work is because I just believe that there may not be this great sense that Jimmy Garoppolo is the guy there.
“And let’s just say that he may not be the guy, so you put Cam back there behind him, and Cam gets to learn from one of the best quarterback gurus that we’ve seen in the league. And maybe, just maybe, Kyle Shanahan is intrigued on having an explosive athlete running the stretch bootleg concept, putting the ball in the perimeter, throwing it out there.”
Newton missed nearly all of last season with a shoulder injury that also cut his 2018 campaign short. In the 14 games he played in 2018, Newton threw for 3,395 yards with 24 touchdowns and 13 picks, completed a career high 67.5 percent of his passes and ran for 488 yards. Newton was named as the league’s MVP in 2015 while leading the Panthers to the Super Bowl.
“I’m just saying, from the Niners’ standpoint, you would be able to get Cam at his cheapest,” Brooks continued. “So if you think about a value proposition, just to bring him in, in case Jimmy Garoppolo gets hurt or falters, it would just be an interesting thing to think about if I’m the San Francisco 49ers, and I’m looking to add value and pop to my offense.”