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The 49ers have made it clear they would like to trade Jimmy Garoppolo. But at this point, the quarterback’s shoulder surgery appears to have put that on hold.
Now San Francisco carries Garoppolo on its roster, although trading him or removing him would take $25.5 million off the team’s salary cap. As head coach Kyle Shanahan said Tuesday, the 49ers won’t get rid of Garoppolo just to take him off the books.
So while the club are clearly preparing to join Trey Lance as a starter in 2022, there’s still a chance that Garoppolo will remain on the squad. At Tuesday’s annual league meeting, 49ers CEO Jed York said he wouldn’t mind keeping Garoppolo as a backup — even at the quarterback’s current salary.
“I’m not the coach. I’m not the general manager,” York said of ESPN’s Nick Wagoner. “You have my authority to compose the roster as you see fit. If that’s it, then as long as we compete and win football games, they have the opportunity to do what they think is best to help us win. We’ve been doing trades and we’ve had people making a lot of money who weren’t on the field. It’s easy to ask your hypothetical question, just like it’s easy to go to this one, but it’s not about what a single piece is. What is the collective?
“If we think having two guys who we think are very, very capable of winning football games and giving us a chance to win the Super Bowl is the best decision, there’s no position [that’s] more important than that in all sports. So if we invest too much in something, I’d rather invest too much in the quarterback position than anything else.”
Keeping Garoppolo as a backup could create an awkward situation for the 49ers, as the quarterback has guided the team to the NFC Championship Game two of the last three seasons. But the team traded for Lance for a reason. And at this point, it doesn’t appear that San Francisco wants to hamper Lance’s development by letting him play second fiddle to Garoppolo for another year.