Jimmy Garoppolo Shades The 49ers For Their Handling Of ‘Messy’ QB Situation

At one point last season, the San Francisco 49ers had an embarrassment of riches at the quarterback position.

In 2017, the Niners traded a second-round pick to acquire Jimmy Garoppolo from the New England Patriots.

Garoppolo would go on to complete 67.6% of his passes while throwing for 82 touchdowns with just 42 interceptions, going 38-17 as the 49ers’ starting quarterback.

Then, in 2021, San Francisco would use the third overall pick in the NFL Draft to select unproven North Dakota State quarterback Trey Lance and install him as the starter for the 2022 season.

Lance would play in just two games before he suffered a season-ending ankle injury, giving the job back to Garoppolo, who would go 7-3 as the starter with a 103.0 QB rating.

However, in Week 13, Jimmy G suffered a foot injury, ending his season as well.

Insert rookie Brock Purdy – Mr. Irrelevant in the 2022 NFL Draft – who would go on to run off 7 straight wins in his first 7 starts before suffering an injury to his right elbow in the Niners’ NFC Championship loss.

So, after determining that they were going to let Lance and Purdy duke it out for the top spot at QB in 2023, the 49ers let Garoppolo walk to the Las Vegas Raiders.

They still, however, had three potential starting quarterbacks after signing Sam Darnold, who like Trey Lance was the third overall pick in the NFL Draft, in 2018 by the Jets.

Lance, unfortunately, finally ran out of time and ended up being traded to the Cowboys for a fourth-round pick after finding himself as the third-string QB on the depth chart.

The entire situation went from being the envy of most NFL teams to a complete mess in a matter of just a few months.

So… what does Jimmy Garoppolo think of how San Francisco handled their quarterback carousel?

“Weird situation. Been a lot of weird situations over there in San Francisco, I’ll just leave it at that, but I’m happy Trey got another shot,” he told SI Now’s Robin Lundberg.

“How do you think San Francisco has handled those quarterback situations?” Lundberg then asked Garoppolo.

Jimmy G replied to the question with a question of his own.

“How do you think they’ve handled them?” he said with a big chuckle.

“I think it’s been messy, I’ll put it that way,” Lundberg responded.

“Yeah, that’s a nice way to put it,” Garoppolo replied back.

Ouch.