Jimmy Garoppolo has yet to be traded and the number of teams in need of his services appears to be getting close to zero. So what are the 49ers going to do?
Longtime NFL reporter Peter King floated two potential scenarios when he joined Colin Cowherd on Tuesday.
“I don’t think there’s a good market at all,” King told Cowherd on “The Herd”. “I think the 49ers are best off doing one of two things: Trying to trade him for Sam Darnold straight up with Carolina because I think Carolina would view that as an improvement.”
There is little doubt that the Panthers would view Garoppolo as an improvement. The problem is the $18.8 million Darnold is guaranteed next season. Part of the reason the 49ers want to offload Garoppolo is they don’t want to pay a premium for a backup to Trey Lance. Trading for Darnold would be a smaller cap hit than the $26.9 million Garoppolo is owed, but it doesn’t go all that far in solving San Francisco’s issue.
Darnold could agree to a restructure, but considering he’d be taking a reserve role, it’s unclear why he’d agree to less money.
Option two from King seems more likely.
“Hanging on to Jimmy until somebody gets hurt on Aug. 28,” King continued. “In that time, Jimmy Garoppolo is going to be healthy, is going to be able to throw the ball well, there’s nothing wrong with the 49ers waiting. They shouldn’t hand him to somebody.”
“It could be that John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan looked Jimmy in the eye and said ‘We promise we’ll trade you’ or words to that effect. If they did, they might have to do something like that. But if I were them right now, I would tell Jimmy ‘be patient, you’ll be somewhere by the trading deadline.”